


Monstrum in Lectulo

by Reioka



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Monsters Have A Gray Moral Compass, Mortality, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-05-09 10:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reioka/pseuds/Reioka
Summary: Tony isn't like other kids. The monsters in his closet play with him instead of scaring him. And they don't disappear as he gets older, either.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Can you believe that the only reason this AU exists is because I had the mental image of an adult Tony coming home and shouting “You can come out of the closet now!”

Steve and Bucky shifted behind the closet door. There was a child on the other side. It had been so long since they’d gotten the chance to frighten a child. They were excited—there was something a lot more amusing about scaring a child than an adult.

 

But they didn’t realize how young the child was until it started sobbing.

 

Steve and Bucky scramble back into the closet before its parents can come in to see what the problem is. Steve felt awful. He liked scaring children, but not when they were this young and _everything_ was scary, and their first response was to cry instead of scream. Bucky didn’t have the same guilt Steve had about making children cry, but as time went on and no came to comfort the child, he _did_ start to feel a little guilty. When they scared children, they weren’t supposed to _stay_ scared. Their parents were supposed to come and take care of them and soothe their tears away. But that wasn’t happening. Not this time.

 

They crept back into the room—the walls were a pretty pale blue, and there was a changing table and a rocking chair and a crib. But aside from that, the room was mostly bare, so there was nothing for them to hide behind or duck under. It was nerve-wracking. But if no one had come for the child yet, it was quite possible that no one would be coming at all, so they swallowed down the anxiety and fear. They figured it was fair. The child had been scared, and now they were scared too.

 

Steve took the little toddler into his scaly arms. “Shhh, I’m sorry, honey,” he soothed, tongue darting out to scent the air momentarily. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry I scared you, sweetheart.”

 

“What the hell kind of human doesn’t respond to a baby’s cry?!” Bucky hissed, hands fluttering around the child before he curled them against his chest to hide his claws. “Isn’t that a biological imperative, that they have to look after their whelps?!”

 

“Shh!” Steve whispered sharply, glancing up at him with narrowed eyes. “You’re scaring it.”

 

“Steve, my _face_ is scaring it,” Bucky snapped in response, motioning at his lupine face, his jaw full of sharp teeth, the rest of his body covered in dark fur.  “The Big Bad Wolf literally came out of his closet and scared the bejeezus out of him.”

 

Steve frowned down at the child, licking his lips, forked tongue fluttering anxiously. “Aw, _hell_. Come on, baby,” he cajoled. “You need to stop crying! Shh!”

 

“Just—just give him to me,” Bucky snarled, wincing when it came out more animalistic than he’d intended, because the child’s shrieks grew in volume in response to it. He saw Steve hesitate and growled at him. “Give him to me,” he repeated sharply, and wrapped his furry arms around the child when Steve didn’t immediately move to give it up. He began to pace, curling the child toward his chest gently. “You’re cold, Steve. You shoulda picked him up with a blanket.”

 

Steve frowned down at his scaly hands. “You’re probably right,” he lamented. His scales had probably felt really uncomfortable against the child’s delicate skin, too.

 

They eventually quiet the child, soothe it back to sleep. Unfortunately, in its sleep, it clings to Bucky’s fur and doesn’t let go. Bucky struggles to detach the child without ripping out tufts of his own fur. It’s harder than he’d like to admit, but he does eventually free himself and set the child back in its little bed.

 

“Can’t we just keep it?” Steve asked hopefully, staring down at the child.

 

“No, we can’t just keep it,” Bucky hissed, glaring at him. “It’s a human, Steve. We—” He stopped, frowning. He reached out to delicately tuck the blankets around the child’s shoulders, frowning, and quietly finished, “We’re not.”

 

Steve looked disappointed, but he nodded. “You’re right.”

 

They took a moment, watching the child sleep, before returning to the closet. They didn’t close the door all the way though, just—just in case.

 

.-.-.-.

 

When the morning came, they heard shuffling feet against the carpet. They peered out the crack between the door and the jamb they’d left the night before to find a woman coming into the room. She looked very tired, even as she carefully lifted the quiet child out of its bed. She curled the child against her chest, looking at him with—not the wonder, or the joy they’d come to expect on mothers’ faces, but a sort of bewilderment and sadness. It gave them chills.

 

The woman turned to walk out of the room. Bucky didn’t growl, but only by the skin of his teeth, and Steve couldn’t quite swallow down an angry hiss. There was a demon hanging off the woman’s back. They thought they’d heard, somewhere, that humans called it ‘Depression.’ It sucked the life out of humans slow and steady, like a leech, making the humans too sad and hurt to shake it off, and only skulking away after they’d grown fat and left the humans as mere shadows of who they’d been before the parasites had gotten to them.

 

The child looks up at its mother, still quiet, before tucking its face back against her chest.

 

Steve and Bucky waited for night to fall before sneaking into the mother’s bedroom and chasing the demon off, all sharp fangs and glowing eyes. This was their new home, they decided, and they won’t take kindly to intruders.

 

The woman was much livelier when the demon was gone.

 

More demons tried to come into their new home, into what they learned was called the ‘Stark Mansion.’ Steve and Bucky fought them off tooth and nail, eating what demons were too foolish to take the chance the two monsters gave them to flee. The woman’s husband’s tortured soul called out to demons, like flames to moths, and Steve and Bucky used it as chance to prove how they’d protect their new home.

 

Part of it was because they were selfish, and didn’t like to share; the other part what that the child, little Antonio, little Bambino, the sweet boy, was too precious to even let demons have a glimpse of him.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Bucky thought they were just going to stay hidden again, because they both felt kind of shitty over scaring Antonio and his suffering alone for so long by himself before they got him calmed down, but then he noticed Steve was only pretending to fall asleep. Bucky wasn’t an idiot, so he feigned sleep as well to see why. He felt Steve’s scales shifting against him as he adjusted himself before slowly sneaking out of the closet. Bucky peeked out to see what the idiot was doing.

 

And there Steve was, playing with blocks with Antionio, who _should be in bed_.

 

“Steve!” Bucky exclaimed angrily, making the basilisk fling one of the blocks in surprise. Then he gawked as the wooden block lodged in the wall near the door.

 

Steve gaped at the block as well, then turned, angrily hissing, “Look what you made me do!”

 

“Me?!” Bucky gaped. Then he scowled, walking over to scoop up the giggling toddler. “Antonio is _supposed_ to be in _bed!_ ”

 

“He was just lying there lookin’ all sad,” Steve complained, but started picking up the rest of the blocks and putting them away. Antonio was a very neat and tidy baby, always picking up his toys and putting them away. His mother would notice if his toys were out in the morning.

 

Bucky rolled his eyes and tucked Antonio back into bed, hissing quietly in pain when the boy refused to let go of him and, as a result, yanked out some of his fur in each hand. “Ow!”

 

“Serves you right,” Steve mumbled to himself petulantly.

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Bucky snarled back, then looked down at the boy and scowled sternly. “Go to sleep. You need that to grow.”

 

“Bubby!” Antonio cooed, gummy smile wide as he reached up for the lupine monster.

 

Bucky stared back, unimpressed. “…Were you trying to say ‘Bucky?’ Because that was awful.”

 

“Pretty sure he was sayin’ ‘puppy,’ but alright,” Steve said, smirking.

 

“Shut up,” Bucky repeated, then flailed at the boy. “How do we get him to go to sleep? He’s going to be small forever.”

 

Steve frowned as he came over. “Um. Sometimes his mother sings to him?” He was trying to sound as if he didn’t peep in on their nightly routine. He failed. When the other monster just stared at him stonily, the blond sighed. “Or she tells him stories from that big book over there?”

 

“Neither of us can read,” Bucky reminded him.

 

Steve scowled, twisting his coils thoughtfully, then snapped his fingers and curled up beside the boy’s bed. “Antonio, I’m going to tell you about how Bucky and I fought Nazis.”

 

Bucky stared at him. “…Won’t that be too bloody for a human child?”

 

“Have you _heard_ some of the fairy stories that humans tell?” Steve sneered. He patted the spot next to him. “Now are you gonna correct everything you think I’m telling wrong or not?”

 

Bucky sighed and sat down where he indicated. “ _Fine_.”

 

“So in the trenches, the Nazis were hallucinating,” Steve began, turning his attention back to little Antonio, who put his thumb in his mouth and stared up at him with wide eyes. “Typically adults will try to rationalize what they see. But during wartimes, when everyone’s tired and afraid, _anything_ can spook ‘em!”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“My sweet bambino,” Maria cooed, scooping him up, and pressed a loud, wet kiss to his cheek that had the boy giggling. She spun him around in a circle before heading toward the door. “My beautiful boy, my wonderful little _what the fuck_!?”

 

Bucky and Steve jerked awake. Maria never swore in English, even when Antonio wouldn’t go down for a nap. They peeked out of the closet and grimaced when they saw the human gaping at the wooden block still sticking out of the wall. Bucky kicked Steve because _why wouldn’t you grab that one you idiot_ and Steve kicked him back because _she still would have noticed the hole, jerk!_

 

“I…” Maria started helplessly, then stopped, lips pursed. She stared at the block. It was wedged pretty deep in there. She had no idea what could have caused that. Surely not Antonio, right? She stared at it a little longer. Well… her child was incredibly clever. He could have rigged something up. She looked down at him and smiled. “I guess you’re going to be a baseball player when you grow up then, my beautiful Antonio.”

 

“Bubby,” Antonio replied cheerfully.

 

“A puppy?” she chortled, then frowned when she heard something like a growl. She turned and stared into the room for a few long moments, eyes lingering on the closet door, then shrugged. It must have just been the house settling. “Time for breakfast, tesorino!”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“He _did_ call you a puppy,” Steve whispered gleefully once they were gone.

 

Bucky growled again and punched him in the face.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony went off to school. He looked so small in his little uniform, suit jacket making his round little shoulders look square, tie knotted up against his throat.

 

“We could come with you,” Steve whispered from the closet. “We could hide under the bed.”

 

Tony turned from making sure he had everything in his suitcase. Somehow his teddy bear kept finding its way out. He could understand, though. He was scared and wanted to stay home, too. “You’ll get in trouble,” he said quietly.

 

“We won’t get caught,” Bucky promised. “We’re too smart for that.”

 

“Then _I’ll_ get in trouble,” Tony said, sounding so goddamn reasonable.

 

He was seven. He shouldn’t be ‘reasonable’ or serious or… or quiet. Children were supposed to be loud and vivacious. Tony rarely got to be any of those things. ‘It’s because I’m smart,’ he’d said, but Steve and Bucky didn’t understand, because they’d seen lots of children who were smart and still got to be loud and playful. They assumed it was part of Howard’s sickness, the wound deep in his heart that he’d let fester and rot. A man constantly in pain probably didn’t even know what play meant.

 

But they didn’t know why that meant that Tony had to be sent away.

 

“I’ll come back for holidays,” Tony offered, and Bucky whined and buried his face in Steve’s neck. “And I’ll tell you all the cool things I did while I was gone.”

 

“We’re gonna miss you,” Steve answered, clutching Bucky’s fur.

 

Tony’s face fell, and he fidgeted a little before going to his dresser and reaching into the top drawer. He approached the closet shyly and shoved something into the crack. Steve caught it before it hit the ground and held it up.

 

It was three chains, with a star, sun, and moon pendant. There were words. Steve trailed his thumb over the one on the sun.

 

“They say ‘best friends forever,’” Tony offered shyly. “I told Mama they were for when I made friends at school, but… I really wanted them to share with you.”

 

Bucky lifted his head to look at them, swallowing the lump in his throat, the desire to howl his heartbreak. “That’s really sweet of you, Tony.”

 

Tony flushed and scuffed his foot on the floor, embarrassed. “You can choose which ones you want. I’ll wear whichever one’s left over.”

 

Steve and Bucky shared a look before they pushed the one with the star out to him. “You need this one,” Steve said. “Because you’re a star.”

 

“Am not,” Tony mumbled, embarrassed, but looped the chain over his head anyway. He beamed bashfully down at the pendant. His was the one that said ‘forever.’

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony only came back for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer breaks. He grew so fast when he was away. Steve and Bucky hated the fact that they were missing it, but Tony was always happy to see them, so they swallowed down the sadness.

 

Then one year Tony didn’t have to leave so early. Steve and Bucky hoped it meant that he got to stay home forever.

 

But Tony just smiled sadly and said, “I’m going off to college this year.”

 

“What’s college,” Steve complained. “And why do you need to go there?”

 

“It’s,” Tony began, and then frowned thoughtfully. “…Well, I guess it’s a human thing. I can’t just… not go.”

 

“You could,” Bucky insisted.

 

Tony laughed. It wasn’t a happy laugh. Steve and Bucky curled around him miserably, and Tony dug his fingers into Bucky’s fur. “Not with Howard Stark as my father, I couldn’t,” Tony said, voice low, and then bit his bottom lip. His other hand went up to gently run his thumb over the pendant on his necklace. The paint had rubbed away, leaving it a tarnished nickel. He loved it anyway. It had helped him through dark, lonely nights, after all.

 

“You forgot your bear, last time,” Steve whispered.

 

Tony opened his mouth to say he was too old for his teddy, that he would have been made fun of mercilessly. He closed it again without saying anything and promised to make sure it was in his bag this time instead.

 

At least someone was worried about him going off alone, Tony lamented, even if it _was_ two monsters that didn’t know a lick about humans.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony came home. Steve and Bucky were overjoyed. His college must be much closer than his boarding school if he was home just for the weekend! They piled out of the closet happily.

 

Except Tony was supposed to be alone. _Tony was supposed to be alone_.

 

“Get back in the closet,” Steve hissed hurriedly, trying to shove Bucky back through the door, but it was too late—they’d been seen.

 

The boy sitting on the bed stared at them for a very, very long time while they stood frozen in terror before finally asking, “Why aren’t you wearing any pants?”

 

“…What,” Bucky said.

 

The boy gestured at them, motioning at Bucky’s bare legs and Steve’s bare tail. “You’re not wearing any pants.”

 

“…Why would we have to wear pants?” Steve asked helplessly, honestly at a loss for words. The question didn’t even make sense. “It’s not like our genitals hang out like yours do.”

 

“Did you seriously just say ‘ _genitals?_ ’” the boy asked, voice pitched higher in shock, before he turned and flopped face-first into a pillow. “Oh my _God_.”

 

“I brought sodas!” Tony crowed cheerfully as he edged through the door with tray in hand. He froze when he saw the two monsters by the closet and his friend sprawled face-first in a pillow. “Uh. I can explain?”

 

His friend lifted his head just long enough to wail, “They’re not wearing any pants!”

 

Tony pursed his lips as he turned to examine Steve and Bucky. “…I _can’t_ explain.”

 

“We don’t _need_ pants,” Bucky sighed, rolling his eyes. He stood straighter and motioned down at his legs. “Look! I’m all furry. You can’t even see anything!”

 

The boy turned, glaring at them stubbornly. “You should still wear pants!”

 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Tony cut in, walking over to set the tray of glasses and sodas down. He spread his hands toward the monsters. “Rhodey, this is Bucky and Steve.” He turned and smiled happily. “Guys, this is Rhodey!”

 

“Jim,” Rhodey corrected blandly, the way someone did when they’d learned how futile it was to try and change Tony’s mind but had to say something anyway. He gave the monsters an unimpressed look. “I guess Tony _has_ talked about you. I’d been expecting people less…” He hummed thoughtfully, trying to find an appropriate word, then shrugged. “Like you.”

 

Bucky sighed and sat down on the floor, tail wagging idly. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

 

“I still think you should wear pants,” Rhodey added.

 

Steve frowned at the boy skeptically. “You’re… taking this really well.”

 

“Tony made a robot that steals our homework so it can try to learn faster,” Rhodey scoffed, sneering at him. “When it comes to Tony, you’re actually not that weird.”

 

Steve and Bucky nodded, conceding. Knowing Tony, yeah, that sounded about right.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony bought them pants on his next visit home and insisted they wear them because he thought it was hilarious. Bucky snarled and bared his teeth, but Tony wasn’t cowed. Bucky didn’t know why he even bothered trying—Tony was ridiculously unafraid of them. That was probably their fault, though.

 

“I’ve got a tail right now!” Steve exclaimed, victorious, and even wiggled his tail a little. He was incredibly smug.

 

Tony made intense eye contact with him and reached into his bag to pull out some shimmery fabric. It was a skirt.

 

Steve scowled, smugness gone. He glared at the skirt for several minutes before hissing and splitting his tail into two legs to instead pull on the pants Tony had brought for him.


	3. Chapter 3

There was something in the mansion.

 

Steve hissed quietly and slithered down the hall. Ever since they’d chased off that first demon, which had clung so tightly to Maria’s back, there had been a mixed back of reactions from the other demons drawn to the mansion—some demons fled preemptively, and others had dug in their heels stubbornly. It had been nice having something to do, though, chasing all the demons off. They’d gotten a few injuries, but never anything major, and the adrenaline rushes had been… kinda fun.

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you looked at it differently), the demons had trickled to a stop in approaching the mansion, and they’d been left with nothing to do. The mansion had been theirs alone for… gosh, years now. That was probably why he was only partly pissed off that something had decided to move in without their knowledge—without their _permission_. Whoever—or _what_ ever—it was needed to leave. Immediately.

 

 _In there_.

 

Steve slithered up to the door, muscles coiling and bunching as he readied himself to leap through it. It had been a while since he’d gotten to do this—he was kind of excited at the thought of a fight, and hell, it had been a while since he’d had a meal this big, too.

 

He burst through the door and rolled across the ground, hissing, tongue darting out to scent the intruder. Then he was yanked up into the air. “What the fuck?!”

 

The eyes that stared back at him were green and cold. “Idiot,” she hissed, then licked her lips, bright red like some of Maria’s lipsticks. “Idiots have always been good meals, though,” she continued, and smirked, showing off large fangs.

 

Steve looked around and went icy cold when he saw the thick, sticky strands of webbing around his body. Then he screamed.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Bucky jolted upright from being sprawled across the foot of Tony’s bed when he heard a high-pitched screech and then a panicked, _“Bucky!”_

 

Tony looked up from doing his homework, frowning in concern. Bucky looked wild-eyed as his ears swiveled on his head. “Are you okay?”

 

“Something’s wrong,” Bucky said, standing from the bed. He got down on all fours. “Stay here.”

 

“One, you already know that that is the worst way to make me stay in one place,” Tony pointed out, rolling his eyes. He shook his head. “Two, the only reason I’m not going to follow you is because if I don’t get an A on this test, I’m going to tear my own hair out.”

 

“Just—fucking _stay_ here,” Bucky snarled, making the teen rear back in surprise before he ran from the room. He’d feel guilty for snarling later. Sometimes Tony needed to be snapped at to follow orders, though.

 

Finding Steve’s scent was easy; he’d committed it to memory when they’d met. It was like following a trail of ice down the halls, just a hint of his musk and the papery scent of dry scales on it. Then there was another scent, something—something spicy, something that smelled of danger and death. He stopped in front of a door, pacing in front of it. Finally, he kicked the door open, hanging back just outside. He didn’t see anything, didn’t smell anything different, so he carefully stepped inside the room—some sort of sitting room or something, because mansions always needed extra sitting rooms, he guessed.

 

It was only then that he saw Steve, hanging from the ceiling by thick strings of silk. “Steve!” he cried, unable to stop himself.

 

“Bucky she’s gonna eat me!” Steve wailed.

 

Bucky paused from trying to figure out how to reach him. “Who’s going to eat you?!”

 

There was a hissing noise, and then a cool, dark voice saying, “The same person who’s going to eat _you_.”

 

Bucky spun around quickly, just in time for a thread of silk to wrap around his ankles, and then his legs were pulled out from under him and he found himself hanging upside-down from the ceiling as well.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony didn’t stay in his room. But that was only because he was hungry and if he asked nicely enough Bucky would make something for him. He had no idea where either of the monsters had gone, but it wasn’t like the mansion went on forever. He’d find them eventually.

 

Following the frantic screaming sure helped, too.

 

“Bucky?” he asked, peeking into the spare parlor.

 

“Tony, run!” Bucky snarled, trying to tear free of the silvery ropes wrapped around him. He mostly just succeeded in getting more stuck.

 

Tony frowned up at him. “But I’m hungry.”

 

“What a coincidence,” a smooth, sexy voice said from above him, and then something dropped from the ceiling in front of him. “ _So am I_.”

 

The woman was definitely a monster. She had a pair of eyes where a human typically had them, but she also had another pair set above them. She had thick, protective hair on all four of her arms from fingertip to elbow, and thick, leathery skin from chest to toe like armor.

 

Tony took all of her in before tilting his head and asking, “…Do any of you wear clothes?”

 

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “…Usually I get a different reaction,” she admitted after a moment. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

 

“If you let Bucky go, he might make us soup,” Tony said hopefully.

 

“Or I could keep him and eat him,” she pointed out. She smirked, laying a hand on his shoulder, another going up to brush his hair back out of his face. “And maybe have you for dessert. You’re pretty handsome.”

 

Tony blinked up at her. “I’m sixteen.”

 

She snatched her hands back as if she’d been burned, clutching them to her chest. “Ew. A child.”

 

“Hey!” the teen exclaimed, offended and hurt.

 

“You’ve still got all your hormones going through you.” She sneered in disgust. “Bitter.”

 

“Oh,” Tony said. That was alright then, he supposed. “…Bucky could make us soup?”

 

“What is it with you and soup?” she asked in disbelief.

 

Tony frowned up at her. “I’m hungry and I have a test in my summer course tomorrow.”

 

The monster stared back at him for a moment, shifting from foot to foot, before she asked, “What kind of soup?”

 

“Tomato!” Tony answered immediately, brightening. “With grilled cheese sandwiches!”

 

She stared a little longer before asking, “What kind of cheese?”

 

Tony smiled wider and spread his arms. “Any kind you want! We have an entire fridge dedicated to cheese!”

 

“…Acceptable,” the arachnid decided. She lifted a hand and grabbed a seemingly random piece of web, giving it a firm yank.

 

Steve and Bucky screamed as the webs unraveled from around them and they fell to the floor.

 

“My name’s Tony,” Tony offered, holding his hand out to her.

 

“…Natasha,” she replied, grasping his hand with her lower right one.

 

Bucky snarled and tackled her. Steve slithered into Tony, scooping him up, and hurried from the room.

 

“Steve, no!” Tony whined. “I promised her that Bucky would make us soup!”

 

“Why are you like this?!” Steve snarling, not stopping for a moment.

.-.-.-.

 

Bucky mulishly set a grilled sandwich in front of Natasha. He set the plate down a little harder than he normally would. “Here.”

 

“Thank you,” she said, reaching out to pick it up. She took a bite of it.

 

Tony frowned. “No, Natasha, you’re doing it wrong!”

 

Natasha looked at her sandwich, confused, then looked at him, frowning awkwardly. “I am?”

 

“Yeah, you’re supposed to dunk it in your soup!” Tony said, and dipped the corner of his sandwich into the creamy tomato soup to show her. “Like this!”

 

Natasha watched him eat the bite of soupy sandwich, still appearing a little confused, but she eventually followed suit. Maybe she didn’t know about eating sandwiches. It’s not like she ate a lot of human food. She took a bite and let out a sound of pleasant surprise at the sweet and savory mix. “Oh!”

 

“Right?!” Tony asked happily. “You can stay in the spare parlor, but you can’t eat people.”

 

“…Humans are stringy, anyway,” Natasha mumbled by way of agreement.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Master Tony,” Jarvis said, frowning, as he poked his head into the teen’s room. “You’ve been eating quite a lot of cheese lately.”

 

“I have?” Tony asked, and then, remembering he’d offered up the cheese fridge to Natasha, said, “I have.”

 

“You might consider cutting back if you want to have regular bowel movements,” Jarvis informed him. “You’re having salad for supper.”

 

Tony blanched. “Aw, Jarvis, nooo!”

 

“Give the cheese refrigerator a break,” the butler ordered sternly. “You’re six—well, I was going to say you’re sixteen and you should know better, but sixteen-year-olds really don’t. Learn from this,” Jarvis said instead.

 

Tony pouted and crossed his arms as the butler walked away, scowling. This was the thanks he got for taking care of monsters.

 

“Serves you _right_ ,” a voice said from the closet. “She was gonna eat us!”

 

“I saved both of your asses and you’ve never seen thanked me,” Tony complained, pouting more, and slouched against the headboard.

 

“Quite,” a voice from the ceiling said, making him yelp in surprise.

 

“Ah!”

 

Natasha stepped down onto his bed from the ceiling and picked up the book he’d been reading before being interrupted. “What is this?”

 

Tony raised an eyebrow at her curiosity, because Steve and Bucky had never shown any interest in books. “Theoretical physics.”

 

She wrinkled her nose, just barely exposing the points of her fangs in disgust. “Do you ever do anything besides read?”

 

“Mom’s teaching me piano,” Tony answered defensively.

 

Natasha paused thoughtfully, then nodded, smiling a little, and set the book back down. “Yes, I’ve heard. Your mother’s music is lovely. Yours not quite so much, but I do hear improvement each time you play.”

 

Tony squeaked, unable to help a blush, because everyone always praised him on his book smarts and engineering, and never on something so personal.

 

“…One day, I might eat you up,” Natasha said. “When you’re older. You’ll be a very hansome man.”

 

Bucky and Steve burst from the closet, snarling, and tackled her off of the bed. After a long and vicious scuffle, they pinned her, but she was smirking.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Natasha asked about the pants.

 

“Tony makes me wear them,” Bucky lamented sadly. “Especially if Jim is coming over.”

 

Natasha looked at Steve, who had a long tail and wasn’t wearing pants. He looked smug. “Steve doesn’t have to wear pants.”

 

“He makes me wear skirts, but I slither around fast enough, it destroys them,” Steve told her proudly. “So he’s given up.”

 

“Tony has never given up on anything in his life,” Bucky pointed out.

 

Natasha wondered if it was meant to sound as ominous as it did.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony really didn’t give up on anything in his life.

 

“Sarongs,” he chortled proudly, opening a bag. “Can’t shred these, Steve!”

 

Steve pouted, scowling, and snatched one of the pieces of fabric. He went to tie it around his waist, then paused, fingering the fabric. It was silky and fluttery, and it felt like he wasn’t holding anything at all.

 

And the patterns were… really nice. There were a variety of colors, and different patterns. The one in his hands had little turtles on them. The background was purple.

 

He loved it.

 

And then he hissed threateningly when Bucky tried to touch it. “It’s mine!”

 

Bucky held his hands up and rolled his eyes. “Fine! Jeez!”

 

(Bucky would admit to being a little jealous when he saw Natasha wearing it though.

 

He got over it when he realized it was the only purple sarong Tony had bought, and she wanted to know what she looked like in purple. Sometimes she said things that Bucky and Steve could tell meant that she’d had a rough past.

 

Bucky supposed he could swallow his jealousy just that once, but only because she decided she didn’t look good in purple and threw the sarong at Steve’s face when she was done with it and he screamed because he didn’t want to snag it with his scales.)


	4. Chapter 4

There were feathers in the hallway.

 

Tony blinked down at them slowly, then began picking them up. They were purple, a deep, rich hue, and each feather was as long as his forearm. He took a moment to be very, very glad that his parents were on trips and that Jarvis and Ana were out shopping, because he’d never be able to explain these.

 

There was a trail of them. Tony followed them, stooping to pick up each feather, because it wouldn’t do for someone to stumble over any of them. It was… an awful lot of feathers. Like an alarming amount of feathers. He could probably make an entire suit out of them.

 

They led to one of the guest rooms.

 

Tony should probably call someone. He remembered when Natasha had come into the mansion, how dangerous it had been. Natasha had told him that the only reason it had worked out so well for him was because he’d surprised her. Still, he was eighteen now. He should be able to handle it.

 

The feathers led to the closet.

 

Tony was never going to understand why these guys liked closets so much. Bucky and Steve had tried to explain it but he didn’t get it. Natasha hadn’t even bothered trying, just shrugged and said, “I like it there.” He’d understood that a lot better than anything Steve and Bucky had said.

 

Tony stopped halfway into the guestroom, calling out, “Hello?”

 

There was a shuffling sound behind the door, but then silence.

 

He took another step closer. “He— _llo!_ I heard you moving in there!”

 

The shuffling sound came again, then a noise like claws on wood.

 

Tony swallowed thickly, clutching the bundle of feathers to his chest. “…I’m not leaving until you come out!”

 

The door burst open so fast that he only had time to scream before whatever had been in it was on top of him.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Bucky and Steve fell out of the closet, scrabbling at the floor and leaving gouges in the wood. When they skidded out into the hallway, they saw a giant black spider crawling across the wall, the red hourglass on its belly shining ominously as it leapt over doorways.

 

Bucky and Steve caught up to her a few seconds later, skidding over the floors. It was worrying, that they’d only heard that one scream. What if Tony _couldn’t_ scream again? What if he—what if Tony was—

 

They crashed through the doorway, tearing the door off its hinges.

 

“Help,” Tony sobbed, hands bleeding around the barbed chain he was clutching. “Help! It’s hurting him!”

 

They stopped in shock. The hulking feathered figure in front of the human was trembling, one wing forced straight up by the chain, the other pinned against its side. Half of the feathers on the extended wing were just… shaved off. Some feathers were even cut in half, and the barbed chain was digging into the flesh hard enough that blood was starting to rise beneath it. It took a lot to pierce a monster’s skin.

 

Natasha swept over to him, form shifting so she had hands, one pair grabbing at the chain while the other carefully but firmly peeled Tony’s free. “Let go, Котенок. It’s hurting you, too.”

 

“Natasha help!” Tony exclaimed, sobbing again.

 

“I’m helping, Котенок. You need to move.”

 

Steve slithered over to wrap his arms around the brunet as Bucky leapt forward to help Natasha, tail wrapping around his legs so he couldn’t lunge forward again. “Shhh. Tony, let them work.”

 

Tony turned so he could cry into his chest. “He couldn’t even ask me for help! He made—he made this terrible sound, Steve, it was _awful_ —”

 

“It’s not—we’re going to tear his fucking wing off,” Bucky muttered, hands shifting, tugging lightly along the chain.

 

Natasha hissed quietly in sympathy as the feathered mass let out a long whine, extended wing shuddering. “We might just have to let it happen. This is a Death Chain. Maybe sacrificing a wing would be better.”

 

“No!” Tony exclaimed, pulling back from Steve’s chest and wiping his eyes. “I can—I’ll go get bolt cutters! We can cut it off!”

 

The monsters looked at each other in confusion before Bucky asked, “Will it work?”

 

Natasha shrugged. “I’ve never seen it, but then… I’ve never had a human care.”

 

“I’ll go get bolt cutters,” Tony repeated, determined, and ran from the room.

 

Steve slithered over and gently curled his fingers under the chain as well. “You said you’ve seen these before?”

 

“Not everyone thinks monsters in the closet or under the bed are adorable fairy tales to soothe their children about,” Natasha answered coldly. “This isn’t the worst I’ve seen.”

 

The feathered monster let out another whine, other wing trying to shove out from under the chain and shaving off a few feathers.

 

“Whoa, buddy!” Bucky exclaimed, reaching out to shove his wing back down. “Calm down! We’re trying to help you!”

 

Tony came running back into the room with a bolt cutter under each arm. “I brought two!”

 

Steve grabbed one of them from his arms and flipped it around so the jaws were facing the chain. “Just tell me where to cut.”

 

“Um—Uh—” Tony circled the feathered monster anxiously, fingers trailing over the chain. “Here? Here. Steve, here!”

 

Steve lifted the bolt cutters and Tony helped him slide them into place. It took more effort than the human had expected, and one of the handles if the bolt cutter broke off. Tony started to hand him the second bolt cutter, but Steve just grabbed the blades and squeezed them together with his hand to cut the chain.

 

Tony would have gaped at the feat of strength, but he was too busy trying to pull the broken link of chain out. Once it was free he said, “Okay, okay, you can pull—”

 

“ _Do not pull_ ,” Natasha ordered immediately. “We need to pick the barbs out or we’ll do just as much damage as the chain was doing by itself.”

 

“Okay,” Tony answered, voice small, and obediently began picking the barbs out of the monster’s skin.

 

It took a while, but eventually Bucky picked out the last barb and the chain fell to the ground with a dull clank. Then Natasha carefully pulled the feathers on the monster’s head back, away from its face.

 

“…Thanks,” it managed to grit out, voice gravely.

 

“Are you okay?” Tony asked, reaching out to push more of its feathers back.

 

The monster’s wings shifted, and then a pair of talon-tipped hands appeared out of the feathers, catching his wrists. “Blood is very hard to get out without water,” it croaked, then reached out to cup the human’s cheeks. “I scared you. I’m sorry.”

 

Tony sniffled quietly. “It’s okay.”

 

.-.-.-.

 

His name was Clint. He’d escaped from a circus and he’d meant to keep running but the chains had gotten too tight, and the mansion was so close. He hadn’t meant to come bursting out of the door so fast, he’d just tripped and flapping his one good wing had been the only thing he could do to keep from falling and tightening the chains further.

 

“I was supposed to scare children,” Clint said, voice much less gritty now that he’d had time to breathe properly and they’d given him water and a can of sardines. “I don’t like to do that.”

 

Natasha didn’t look up from winding bandages around Tony’s bruised and lacerated hands. “How does that feel?”

 

“Hurts,” Tony admitted quietly.

 

“You’re lucky a barb didn’t go right through your hand,” Bucky muttered, peering through the fridge. “Steak?”

 

“I haven’t had beef in… decades. So maybe not,” Clint answered. He gave Tony a long, appraising look. “Most humans wouldn’t start trying to pull a barbed chain off something after it basically attacked them.”

 

Steve snorted from where he was carefully pulling the other monster’s feathers so they were facing the right way. “Most humans don’t walk up to a monster and offer them soup when she could easily eat him.” He paused at the monster’s wing where most of the feathers had been cut off, frowning, before quietly asking, “Will they grow back?”

 

“…Probably,” Clint said after a bit too long. He looked back at Tony. He looked like a person that hadn’t been scared as a child. “If I could just have a few days to rest, I can get out of your hair.”

 

“You don’t need to go,” Tony hurried to say. “The mansion’s big! You can pick any room!”

 

Bucky sighed loudly. “You won’t be happy until you’ve adopted every monster you can, will you?”

 

“He’s _hurt_ ,” Tony exclaimed indignantly. “And whoever might still be chasing him! They can’t get to him here!”

 

“Let it go, Buck,” Steve muttered, smoothing his hands down the feathers on Clint’s back. “You know Tony.”

 

Bucky sighed again, quieter. He did know Tony; he was a fixer. “How about meatballs?”

 

“That sounds awful,” Clint admitted. “But I’m so hungry that I don’t actually care. It’s better than anything I’ve eaten anyway, probably.”

 

“I’ll cook them in broth so it’s easier on your stomach.”

 

Clint nodded, humming quietly, and then extended his wings. He’d basically been clipped. He wouldn’t be able to fly anyway. So maybe he’d stay a little longer than a few days.

 

“Oh! The feathers!” Tony gasped, standing abruptly. “I need to pick them up before Jarvis and Ana get home!”

 

Clint watched him go. “Someone should probably go help him. The feathers that were cut will have really sharp edges.”

 

Steve made a startled noise and hurried after him. With his scales, he was extra impervious to injury. And it would be just their luck that Tony would slice his arm open.

 

“He’s going to keep you,” Natasha decided, leaning her elbow on the table and her chin on her fist. “He does that.”

 

Clint shrugged. Steve, Bucky, and Natasha seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves. It wasn’t like it could be any worse than the circus.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Clint’s feathers took a couple years to grow back, but it happened eventually.

 

He was terrified that that meant he’d have to leave. Clint was smart enough to know that he’d never find a place as safe as the Stark Mansion. Sure, Howard Stark gave him the willies, but he kept to himself, drunk and angry and quiet. (Maria was nice. Clint could see where Tony got it from. Maria’s eyes were kind when she smiled, and so were Tony’s. Clint ached with how much she loved her son. He wondered if his parents had felt like that for him. He couldn’t remember.)

 

Tony saw that Clint’s feathers had grown back in. He was terrified that that meant that Clint would _want_ to leave. Why would Clint stay? He could fly. He could go anywhere he wanted. Why would he want to stay in their stuffy old mansion?

 

Natasha had no idea what she did to get saddled with all these idiots, but she had them, so she had to fix things.

 

(“I don’t get paid enough for this,” she complained, pacing on the ceiling.

 

Steve frowned up at her. “What does that mean?”

 

“I don’t know,” she answered irritably. “It’s just something humans say to complain.”)

 

So Natasha casually mentioned to Tony, “Clint can fly now.”

 

Tony nodded, trying not to look as miserable as he felt. “Yeah.”

 

“Maybe, if you ask nicely, Clint might take you flying,” she suggested, because she realized belatedly that this human was dense and she needed to spell things out for him plainly.

 

Clint squawked when Tony came barging into his room. “Tony what the fuc—”

 

“Will you take me flying?!” Tony blurted out before he could stop himself.

 

Clint blinked at him. “Alright? But we have to wait until it’s dark. I don’t want people to see us.”

 

“That’s fine!” Tony agreed immediately. He nearly bounced where he stood. “Okay I’ll meet you outside as soon as it’s dark!”

 

Clint watched him dart back out of the room, feeling off-center, but… kinda happy, too.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Night came, and the monsters and Tony piled out onto the lawn.

 

Tony held his hands out. “Where do I grab?”

 

Clint had never carried anyone before. He hadn’t really been let out of his cage. It took a while for them to figure out the logistics of carrying Tony, and eventually they decided that Tony could cling to his back like Clint was giving him a piggyback ride, as long as he didn’t mind Clint’s  shoulder blades and bases of his wings digging into his chest and stomach with each flap.

 

“I’ve dealt with worse!” Tony told him proudly, and clambered onto Clint’s back. Clint was horrified by the statement, but he was also too scared to ask about it.

 

It only took three big flaps to get airborne and glide. Tony whooped and laughed in delight. Clint glanced up at him. Tony’s smile was wide and bright, and his eyes were shining with excitement. Clint had… He’d never had a human look like that around him. _Because_ of him. Something in his chest thumped. It hurt, but he liked it.

 

“Faster!” Tony cried, gripping handfuls of shiny purple feathers.

 

Clint did him one better, and did a barrel roll and then a flip.

 

When they landed, Tony’s knees were wobbly, but he still managed to run between each of the monsters, excited. “Did you see me?! We were so high! That barrel roll was so cool! And the flips! Wow!”

 

“That’s nice, Tony,” Steve said, smile sincere, and buried his face in the boy’s hair as he continued to chatter to Natasha how cool it was.

 

“I’m gonna go back up there,” Tony said, turning to stare up at the sky. “I _will_. Even if I have to build a flying suit.”

 

Clint stared at the human boy and couldn’t help ruffling his feathers, crest beginning to rise at the deep, content feeling in his chest. “How about you start with a harness so I don’t have to worry about you falling to your death?”

 

Tony whipped around, eyes wide and bright as he excitedly asked, “You’re staying?!”

 

Clint faltered a little, but then he realized the human was _happy_ at the idea. It occurred to him that Tony would probably never want him to leave, because his heart was bigger than his brain. “Yeah,” he finally said, very proud of how his voice didn’t break. “Yeah, I’m staying.”

 

Tony let out a happy noise and leapt on him, throwing his arms around his neck, hands disappearing under his feathers. Clint made a confused sound, but then he saw Natasha, Bucky, and Steve making encircling motions with their own arms frantically. He carefully wrapped his wings around the boy. He’d seen them do this before, less by Natasha but a lot by Steve and Bucky. Tony loved to be held.

 

Clint could understand why. Tony felt precious in his wings, and when Tony squeezed around his neck tighter, clutching at his feathers, he could feel the affection the boy had for him.

 

He was staying.

 

(“Why do you keep calling me a boy?” Tony whined. “I’m an adult! I’m twenty years old!”

 

The monsters just looked at him, and did not tell him how old they were, or that Natasha remembered snipers in the trees of her forest in Russia and quietly using a little silk to keep them from falling; or that Steve and Bucky remembered the first time mustard gas filled the trenches and they’d had to flee while the soldiers screamed and choked; or that Clint remembered being paraded in front of the Ottomans, and still sometimes forgot that Poland existed.

 

They did not say that Tony would still only be a boy when he died, too.)


	5. Chapter 5

Jim looked between the four monsters slowly. “…There are more of you.”

 

“Hi, Jim!” Steve said cheerfully, tail curled around Clint’s shoulders. “Haven’t seen you in a while!”

 

“I was deployed,” Jim explained. ‘A while’ was an understatement. He’d been gone for a year.

 

“Oh, that makes sense. How is the army?”

 

Jim sighed. “Air force.”

 

Steve nodded. “How is the air force?”

 

“How long has there been an air force?” Clint asked, confused.

 

Steve turned to look up at him. “Since the second World War.”

 

“There was a _first_?”

 

“Yeah, that’s when the Ottomans stopped existing.”

 

Jim covered his face to pretend he wasn’t as horrified as he actually was. He didn’t even want to think about how old these monsters were. “Deployment was fine.”

 

“That’s good,” Bucky said. “Tony will be happy to see you.”

 

Jim sighed, nodding somberly. “Yeah.” He noticed the sarong around Steve’s waist and snorted. “I like your sarong.”

 

Steve proudly tugged at his green sarong with yellow starbursts. “Thanks! Are you impressed? I’m wearing clothes!”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Jim mumbled, looking pained. He sighed. “Could have chosen something darker, at least.” He shook his head, brushing the monster’s behavior off, and instead turned to the hulking feathered creature on the back of the couch, its taloned feet clutching into the fabric. Then he looked up at the spidery woman standing on the ceiling. “…The _hell_ ,” he muttered to himself, then sighed loudly and began fiddling with his cuff links.

 

He told himself that with Tony, it made sense. Tony had always collected strays, even when they weren’t good for him. Like Tiberius.

 

Bucky came up beside him, claws tapping on the floor. “You’re all dressed up,” he said, inquiring but not outright asking.

 

“Yeah,” Jim agreed dryly. If Bucky had a question, he could damn well ask it. He batted the lupine monster away when he started to sniff at him. “Stop it, you weirdo.”

 

Bucky held his hands up placatingly and trotted over to the couch, instead leaping on the feathered figure and tackling it backward onto the cushions. Its startled shriek and Steve’s pissed hissing gave the human gooseflesh.

 

Jim stood up a little straighter when he saw the brunet coming down the stairs. Tony was dragging his feet a little, and his shoulders were slumped. He looked so… small. So small and young. Jim frowned. “You ready to go?”

 

“Yeah,” Tony said quietly.

 

Steve’s head popping up from behind the couch. “Where are you guys going?”

 

Jim made a long, annoyed sound and wrapped an arm around the younger man’s shoulders. “Funeral,” he answered, voice clipped.

 

“Oh.” Bucky sat up, a feather sticking out from between his sharp teeth. “Whose?”

 

“Are you for real?!” Jim asked angrily, then ushered Tony out of the mansion. “What the fuck, Tony, why do you even—”

 

The monsters watched them go, frowning.

 

“…It’s not like we know everyone that they do,” Steve mumbled, crossing his arms defensively.

 

Natasha made a thoughtful noise and began walking toward the stairs. Well, the ceiling above the stairs.

 

“Where are you going?” Bucky asked as Clint squawked and tried to regain his feet.

 

“I have a hunch,” Natasha answered. “I just hope I’m wrong.”

 

They watched her go, concerned. Natasha’s hunches were rarely ever wrong, and she had never before wished them to be. They shared a look as they helped Clint up onto his feet before following her up the stairs.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“You didn’t tell us it was your _parents_ ,” Bucky said, hurt, as soon as Tony came back.

 

Clint ruffled his feathers in agitation. “We thought they were just on another trip!”

 

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Tony replied shortly, brushing past them. He felt Steve’s tail start to wrap around his legs and reached down to smack it away before the monster could stop him. “I want to be alone.”

 

Jim came to a stop as well, frowning as he watched the younger man go. After a moment, he turned to hang his suit jacket in the closet. “He didn’t tell you guys?”

 

Natasha turned from having watched Tony leave as well. “Admittedly, we react to death quite differently from humans.”

 

“Still, he should have told you,” Jim sighed, shaking his head tiredly. “You would have asked where his parents were eventually.”

 

“Not really,” Bucky admitted, scratching the back of his head awkwardly when the human whipped around to stare at him in outrage. “We only see them every once in a while, and we usually avoid them anyway. Maria always brushed what we did off as figments of her imagination, and Howard… He was Howard.”

 

“You guys are literally the worst,” Jim breathed, in awe of how terrible that was and why that, perhaps, was why Tony hadn’t told any of them what happened.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony didn’t turn from staring at the wall, clutching his pillow to his chest. “I said I wanted to be alone.”

 

Natasha tilted her head, acknowledging him, before dropping from the ceiling and flipping to land neatly on her feet on the floor. “That was an hour ago.”

 

“Well, I still wanna be alone!” Tony snapped, curling his fingers into the pillow harder. “So get out!”

 

She ignored him, as she usually did, and instead reached out to begin muscling him out of his suit jacket. “You’ve wrinkled it,” she sniffed, disappointed.

 

“Natasha, what the f—Get off of me!” Tony exclaimed angrily, trying to fight her off, but she had four arms and Tony only had two, and she was already stronger than him by virtue of what she was. She finally plucked the jacket off of him and he fell back onto the bed with a yelp.

 

Natasha peeled his dress shirt off as well. “Take off your pants.”

 

Tony blinked up at her, then leered. “Pity sex?” He knew the levity didn’t work when the monster just frowned at him severely.

 

“I will wrap you up in silk and hang you from a tree,” she threatened instead, turning to walk toward his dresser.

 

Tony threw his hands up, letting out an angry gust of breath, before mulishly reaching down to open his pants.

 

Natasha returned to his side with a pair of MIT sweatpants and a band t-shirt. “You should be comfortable while you mourn,” she told him, setting them on the bed.

 

“That’s the thing, Natasha,” Tony spat, glaring at her. “Mourning is just kind of inherently uncomfortable.” Still, when she held the shirt up threateningly, he snatched it from her and put it on, because who knew you could threaten someone with a shirt? Not him, not until this moment.

 

Seeing that he wasn’t making any move to take his slacks off, Natasha sighed, irritated, and reached out to pull them off of him. She’d give him a pass just this once, though. “I’m not going to pretend I understand,” she told him, pausing to pick his shoelaces loose so she could slide his loafers off. “You know we won’t.” She set the shoes aside. “Which is probably why you didn’t tell us. You’ve wrinkled your pants, too,” she sighed, holding them up with a scowl.

 

She folded them up anyway and turned to carry them over to the chair, where she’d hung his jacket and shirt. She placed his shoes under it as well. “…But I will miss your mother playing the piano,” she said softly.

 

Tony froze, sweatpants halfway up his legs.

 

“And I will miss Howard, for the times he was sober and kind to you,” Natasha continued. “And I will be sorry that your parents have ceased to exist in your life.” She turned toward him, expression as soft as she could manage. Unlike Bucky and Steve, comforting people didn’t come easy to her. Tony made her want to try, though. “But you are not alone. We don’t always… _understand_ in ways you’d like us to. But we will be here, when you need us.” She took a deep breath. “We will try to comfort you, if you need us to.”

 

Tony tightened his grip on the waistband of his sweatpants, knuckles turning white. His eyes filled with hot tears, and he bit his bottom lip to try and keep them from falling as he hurriedly pulled his pants the rest of the way up. He felt vulnerable and squirmy, and he—he wanted his mom. But she wasn’t here anymore, and all he had were these monsters, who loved him but didn’t understand.

 

Natasha tilted her head contemplatively as she looked at him. “Perhaps,” she began, thoughtful. “Perhaps, I will learn what true mourning is when you pass. You are my dearest.”

 

Tony choked and lifted his hand to cover his mouth, tears rolling down his cheeks.

 

Natasha frowned at him and stepped over to pull the boy into her arms, wrapping all four of them around him tightly. “I do not understand, but I will support you as you mourn. And so will everyone else.”

 

Tony turned his head to hide his face in her neck, trying to muffle his sobs. “I want my mama, Natasha. But she’s gone. She’ll never call me bambino, or tesorino, or piccolo again. She’ll never pet my head or hold my hand. I’m all alone now. What am I gonna do?”

 

“I don’t know,” Natasha admitted, running a hand through his hair like she’d once seen Maria do. “But we’ll support you as you figure it out. We’ll be here. We might not be human company, but… we care about you, Tony.”

 

“I know,” Tony sobbed. “It just hurts so bad, and none of you understand, and—”

 

“We’re sorry,” Natasha soothed. “We’ll try harder to understand.”

 

Tony’s arms tightened around her. That was really all he could ask for, in the end.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this chapter seems kind of shoe-horned in and out-of-place, but when I posted this on Tumblr there was actually a lot of bits 'n' pieces that led up to it. I just couldn't figure out how to write all those pieces into a cohesive chapter, though, so here we are. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“I thought he liked me,” Tony said quietly as Natasha pressed an ice pack to the side of his face.

 

Clint paused in preening him, talons curling around the boy’s shoulders. “…I don’t think he was capable of liking anybody but himself.”

 

Steve muttered irritably, wrapping his tail tighter around the human’s legs. Bucky hushed him, but he looked just as irritated.

 

“He sure fooled me,” Tony said, trying for a smile, but he’d always been really bad at hiding his feelings from them. It didn’t help that his visible eye was beginning to water.

 

“He’s sick from the inside, Tony,” Steve blurted out angrily. “That’s the only explanation for what he did to you. You’re precious.”

 

Tony laughed a little. It sounded sad. “If you say so.”

 

Bucky poked his head out from beneath the table. “What if we killed him?”

 

“ _Do not,_ ” Tony answered immediately.

 

“Just a little bit.”

 

“Jesus Christ, I’ll be their first suspect!”

 

The monsters muttered to themselves, annoyed, but decided that maybe they shouldn’t kill Tiberius Stone for hurting Tony. Just this once.

 

“The fuck kind of name is Tiberius, anyway,” Clint mumbled petulantly to change the subject. “And his nickname was _Ty_. Like someone should ever be named after a silk noose.”

 

Tony snorted and pretended he didn’t know Clint was literally parroting him word-for-word from his annoyed ranting from earlier in his former relationship. “The fuck kind of name is Clint?”

 

“A _good_ one,” Clint replied snootily. He went back to preening the boy’s hair, the tips of his talons gentle and delicate on his scalp. “Don’t worry, kid. You’ll find someone who loves you the way you are.”

 

Tony shrugged, laughing awkwardly. “Thanks, Clint.”

 

“You’ll find someone who would never dream of hurting you,” Natasha added, pulling the ice pack away to examine the bruise around his eye before gently putting it back. “Someone who loves you almost as much as Steve and Bucky do.”

 

Tony laughed another sad laugh. “Like I’ll ever find anyone who loves me as much as Steve and Bucky love each other. They’re a love for the ages.”

 

Steve and Bucky looked up at him, shocked and hurt, but didn’t say anything.

 

“…Right,” Natasha said, frowning at him judgmentally, as Steve miserably wrapped his tail tighter around Tony’s legs and Bucky sighed and hid his face in Steve’s belly.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Maybe it’s because you guys literally remember him in diapers,” Clint said as the pair lamented about Tony brushing them off. “Humans are weird about that. And age differences. Although I agree, age differences that come with a power imbalance are yucky.”

 

“…Is there a power imbalance?” Steve asked worriedly, tail curling and body shifting anxiously.

 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Other than Tony owning the house you live in? Not really. There might have been if he were younger,” she added thoughtfully, tilting her head. “And less experienced. But he’s older now. And he’s had more sex than most humans I know.”

 

Bucky groaned loudly and shoved his head under a throw pillow. “We _know_. We could hear it all.”

 

“Oh, is that why Steve started sleeping in the spare parlor with me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Huh. You’re just a glutton for pain then? You must be, having to hear and smell but not touch.”

 

“Someone had to be there in case things went wrong,” Bucky insisted just a touch defensively. “I didn’t want him to say no and not be listened to.”

 

Clint hopped from the arm of the couch onto the back. “And self-righteous Steve couldn’t?”

 

“He writhes himself sick,” Bucky and Natasha answered immediately.

 

Steve, shame-faced, sagged into his coils.

 

“He’s too impatient to just sit there doing nothing. And there’s only so much he can do. He tries not to use his venom because it’s so deadly and he can only constrict so tight before he snaps the person in half,” Bucky explained to the surprised flyer. “He’s strong as hell, and humans are delicate. So he sort of just… attacks himself when he feels he can’t do anything to help.”

 

“I once had to stop him before he literally knotted his tail and snapped his spine,” Natasha added gleefully. “It was super gross.”

 

Steve sighed sadly. “You could sound less excited when you say that.”

 

“No, you almost snapped your own spine. That was amazing.”

 

“Natasha please.”

 

“ _Anyway_ ,” Bucky cut in as they began to bicker, looking up at Clint. “Steve writhes himself sick with worry if he can’t do something to help. Luckily I’m patient enough for the both of us.”

 

Clint shook his head slowly. “Pathetic. Have you ever thought about bringing this up with Tony?”

 

“Every time we try, he assumes we’re either talking about how much we love each other, or how we love him like family or something,” Steve mumbled, scales scuffing the floor as he began to writhe a little to get more comfortable in his coils. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve never wanted to fuck my family.”

 

Natasha pursed her lips thoughtfully. “…I don’t think I ever had a family.”

 

“I have a brother somewhere, but I don’t wanna fuck him,” Clint admitted.

 

“I have sisters somewhere,” Bucky added thoughtfully. “But nah, I don’t wanna fuck ‘em either. We lost contact with each other in the seventies. They liked freaking out the flower children.”

 

Natasha sighed fondly. “Ah. The seventies. I don’t remember any of them.”

 

“Boo!” Clint blew a raspberry. “I don’t even know what you guys are talking about because I was still trapped in the circus!”

 

“We’ll have Tony find a movie for you,” Bucky said sympathetically. Tony was really good at finding movies that explained time periods for their less worldly companion. He’d seen a lot of the world, of course—but only through a tent or a cage. “But you didn’t miss much.”

 

“I guess not, if Natasha can’t even remember it,” Clint mumbled petulantly as she smirked. “Okay but we’re totally going to make Tiberius regret ever laying a finger on Tony, right?”

 

“Yes,” the others agreed immediately, growling angrily at the thought of _anyone_ putting a hand on their human.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony started dating someone named _Sunset_.

 

“I don’t like her,” Clint said immediately. “I do not. Get rid of her.”

 

The others stared at him, unsure of what to do. On one hand, Clint didn’t offer up his opinions very much, likely from some residual fear that he’d be beaten or something like he had been back at the circus. On the other, he was very good at judging people’s character because of it. If he didn’t like Sunset, it was because she was no good.

 

But scaring adults off was quite a bit different from scaring children.

 

“Get rid of her. _Get rid of her,_ ” Clint hissed, feathers ruffling irritably. “ ** _Get rid of her._** ”

 

“Why?” Natasha finally asked, frowning.

 

“She’s a taker. _A taker_. Get rid of her!” Clint cawed, then began hopping about and anxiously using his beak to pluck his own feathers out. “She’s going to hurt him. A taker. Help him! Get rid of her!”

 

“Clint, calm down!” Steve exclaimed desperately. “You’re going too—you’re tearing out your pinfeathers!”

 

“Grab him,” Bucky snapped at Natasha, lunging for the bird and curling his arms around his wings, trying to keep Clint’s wings from his beak.

 

Natasha got the other monster in a headlock, and they lowered him to the ground as he screeched and flailed, wings slapping angrily on the ground, leaving bloody splatters in their wakes. Steve curled his tail around one wing to immobilize it so Bucky could focus on the other one. Natasha was murmuring something to Clint in another language, but it could take several minutes before he calmed down.

 

Clint eventually let himself be pinned down, but not before he put all his strength into one last struggle and screeched, “ _She’s a taker! Get rid of her!_ ”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“She’s a taker,” Natasha agreed a few days later. Her face was grim. “Maybe you guys should grow some balls and actually tell Tony your love for him isn’t familial so he doesn’t drift from abuser to abuser like a lot of other humans.”

 

Bucky scoffed. “Yeah, okay, because a human always wants to be with a giant bipedal wolf and a half-man, half-snake.”

 

“If any human is going to accept you, it’s Tony,” Natasha replied, shrugging.

 

She probably wasn’t wrong, but Steve was hesitant anyway. “But what if he has a problem with it? Then we’ll have to leave.”

 

“Doubtful,” Natasha drawled. “Tony has always had a heart bigger than his brain. He’d just feel bad he didn’t return your feelings.”

 

…That was probably true.

 

“Why is he like this,” Steve whispered, scrubbing his hands through his hair.

 

Bucky sighed, hanging his head. “Probably for the same reason he welcomes monsters with open arms.”

 

“ _Fuck._ ”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“So, Sunset seems…” Steve began, then trailed off, grimacing.

 

Tony stared at him.

 

“Why do you even try?” Bucky asked him, disappointed.

 

“I keep thinking that one day I won’t be terrible at this,” Steve admitted.

 

Bucky just shook his head. The blond sank into his coils, muttering quietly in embarrassment.

 

“Do you want to meet her?” Tony asked, looking back and forth between them. “I don’t think she’s ready for that yet, but—”

 

“No,” they cut in immediately, and Steve added a cold, “Never.”

 

Tony took a step back, hurt.

 

“She’s using you Tony,” Bucky explained, trying to keep his voice gentle. “Clint had an episode trying to tell us how bad she was.”

 

“You don’t know that for sure,” the human replied immediately, always stubborn, digging his heels in. “Clint isn’t always right about these things. Obie’s taken good care of me and he pitched a fit about him, too!”

 

Steve and Bucky gritted their teeth. It wasn’t just Clint. And one day Stane would mess up, there would be a crack in his perfect shell, and they’d be able to point it out to Tony. Unfortunately it was just a waiting game until then.

 

“You’re just—jealous!” Tony spat, hackles up. “I’m spending a lot of time with Sunset and you’re jealous I’m not spending it with you!”

 

“Yes,” Bucky agreed.

 

“Right!” Tony snapped, then stopped, brows furrowing together, because he didn’t expect them to just… admit it. “Wait, what?”

 

“We are jealous,” the wolf repeated. “And yes, that is part of the reason we don’t like Sunset.”

 

“You should be spending that time with us,” Steve continued. “We love you, Tony.”

 

Tony huffed. “Listen, I know some people are okay with being single but surrounded by friends their entire lives, but I don’t want that! I want someone to be intimate with! That I can show my vulnerabilities! That’s not wrong. And you guys are eventually going to have to grow up and—”

 

Bucky made an annoyed noise and smacked Steve on the shoulder. “ _Go_.”

 

Steve didn’t need to be told twice. Watching him lunge at Tony was magnificent, shimmering blue and silvery-white scales shining in the light as he wrapped around the boy, tail coiling around his legs and arms sliding around his shoulders to keep him in place, keep him from fleeing. Tony made—not a frightened noise, because he was never afraid of them no matter how stupid that was—a… a startled noise, a soft sound of question.

 

Steve swallowed it, pressing his lips to Tony’s, hands coming up to cradle his cheeks tenderly. Steve thrust his tongue into his mouth when the human made a surprised sound, carefully mapping out the soft, wet expanse. Tony’s hands scrabbled at his back and shoulders, fingernails sliding over scales, before he dug his hands into the blond’s hair and—didn’t tug him away.

 

Bucky prowled around so his chest pressed against Tony’s back, trailing his cold nose over the human’s neck and shoulder as he rested his hands on the boy’s slim waist. “You can be vulnerable with us, doll. We’ll take care of you. We always have.”

 

Tony let out a sound, small, wounded, and broke the kiss with Steve to tuck his head under his chin, hiding his face. “You’re just saying that.”

 

“Sweetheart, we’ve been trying to tell you we love you for a while now,” Steve admitted quietly. “You always brushed us off.”

 

“Well-!” Tony leaned back, scowling up at him, then turned so Bucky could see it too. “How was I supposed to know? You guys are together, and happy, so how was I supposed to know that you wanted me too? And-! And why didn’t you say anything earlier, before Tiberius—”

 

“You and Tiberius met when you were nineteen,” Bucky explained slowly. “You were still too young for us to approach you.” He looked Tony up and down, smiling wryly. “Probably still are, to be honest.”

 

“I’m twenty-four!” Tony exclaimed indignantly.

 

Steve and Bucky stared at him. They didn’t have a number—even if they could count, the years passed differently for them. Sometimes it felt like only yesterday that Tony was peeking into the closet with a gap-toothed smile and whispering, ‘wanna play?’

 

Even if Tony was on his death bed, they’d still probably feel like they were robbing Tony’s cradle.

 

“You gonna kiss me, too?” Tony asked suddenly, turning to Bucky again.

 

Bucky stared back at him silently.

 

Tony frowned, shoulders beginning to hunch. “Um. Unless. Unless you don’t want to.”

 

Steve chuckled and said, “Tony, he’s got a muzzle. How’s he s’posed to kiss you?”

 

“Oh.” Tony turned so his back was to Steve instead, a struggle because Steve was still wrapped around his legs. He looked up at Bucky, eyeing him critically. “…Well,” he said, shrugging, and leaned in to press a kiss to Bucky’s nose.

 

Bucky let out a high-pitched whine, tail wagging wildly, and in turn buried his cold, wet nose against the boy’s neck.

 

“Oh wow,” Steve said, laughing a little. “I guess you’ve found a good alternative.”

 

“I guess,” Tony said, smiling shyly when the wolf crowded him back against Steve, and the only thing that kept him from falling was the tail coiled around his legs. “Guys—Guys! I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m still kinda dating Sunset. Maybe if things go sour—”

 

Yeah. They could imagine just how sour, from some of the things Natasha had said.

 

Bucky lifted his head to look down at Tony, frowning. “Tony, let us show you something.”

 

Tony blinked up at him, concerned, because he sounded so serious all of the sudden. “Okay.”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Clint!” Tony gasped, rushing over to him.

 

Clint spread his wings awkwardly, hobbling down to the arm of the couch so he was low enough that the human could wrap his arms around his waist instead of his legs. “Hey, Tony.”

 

“What happened?!” he exclaimed, leaning back so he could card his fingers through his feathers, fingers skimming lightly over the raw red patches on his wings.

 

Clint shrugged. “Had a fit.”

 

“An anxiety attack? A flashback? Do you need your security blanket?” Tony asked, fretting.

 

Clint made a rasping sound, feathers ruffling with annoyance. “I just got upset.”

 

“It’s okay if you need the security blanket. I made it for you,” Tony insisted earnestly.

 

Clint sighed loudly. “I don’t need the security blanket. I just got upset.”

 

“About what?” Tony asked guilelessly, looking up at him. If he could fix it, he would.

 

Clint stared down at him for a long moment before he said, “Sunset. She’s a taker.”

 

Tony frowned, confused. “Wh—”

 

“She’s going to hurt you even worse than Tiberius,” Clint continued, beginning to work himself up again. “I know it. She smiles and talks like the ringleaders. Smiles for the audience but turns around and beats the attractions. She’s waiting until she finds something she can take.” His crest began to rise and he let out an angry screech. “She’s going to hurt you and I want her gone!”

 

“Clint!” Steve exclaimed, reaching out to grab his wrists before he could sink his talons into Tony’s back. “Calm down!”

 

“Make her go make her go make her go!” Clint chanted, struggling for a moment, then let out another screech and twisted his head to rip out a beak-full of feathers.

 

Tony threw his arms around the avian monster’s neck, crying out, “Clint!”

 

“Makehergomakehergomakehergo!” Clint snarled. “ _Makehergomakehergo!_ ”

 

Bucky lunged forward to grab Clint’s left wing so Steve could focus on his right.

 

Somehow, Natasha knew they needed help, and appeared a few minutes later with the security blanket Tony had made for Clint.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“She must be really bad,” Tony whispered, staring down at his clasped, shaking hands. “To make Clint react like that.”

 

Natasha grimaced. She’d done a lot of digging, and Sunset was every bit the taker Clint had accused her of and more—she liked inflicting pain on those she took from, in ways that made her victims too afraid to bring attention to it.

 

“He shouldn’t—he shouldn’t have to go through that,” Tony continued softly. There were rusty red patches on his hands from trying to stop the blood and cleaning Clint’s wings. “He doesn’t deserve that. And he’s—he’s been here longer than Sunset.”

 

“…We’re sorry,” Steve said, actually managing to sound sincere. And he _was_ sorry. Somehow Tony always found cruel people with perfect, smiling masks. “We just… don’t want you to get hurt.”

 

Tony stared at the lump under the heavy blanket that was Clint, sleeping fitfully and every once in a while letting out little noises of distress. If he was this upset about it, it must be true. Clint didn’t have it in him to lie. Avoid or ignore questions outright? Sure. But lie? He didn’t have the patience. If he was this upset about it, it must be true. “It’s fine,” he said, instead of anything else.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Sunset screamed and threw her wine glass at him. Tony had the unsettling feeling that if he’d waited until they were alone to tell her that they should stop seeing each other, she’d have done much worse.

 

So he went home, washed the wine off as best he could without actually showering, and crawled into the closet with Steve and Bucky.

 

Steve muttered in his sleep, coils loosening to open up a spot for him like he always did when Tony came crawling in. Tony settled on his coils carefully, even though Steve was always insisting that he was too light to hurt him. Steve wrapped an arm around his waist and sighed contentedly, curling up against Bucky’s side. Bucky turned his head, snuffling sleepily over Tony’s hair, then let out a soft, inquisitive huff and swiped his tongue through it.

 

“…Why does your hair taste like wine?” Bucky mumbled sleepily.

 

“Go back to sleep,” Tony answered, biting his lip against the urge to giggle when the lupine monster’s cold nose drifted over the shell of his ear.

 

Bucky swiped his hair with his tongue again before burying his nose down the back of Tony’s shirt with a tired ‘whuff.’

 

Tony squirmed to get more comfortable, settling against Steve’s coils and Bucky’s chest.

 

Well. This wasn’t where he’d imagined he would be tonight, but… this was alright.


	7. Chapter 7

Someone slipped into his cell.

 

Hulk stood, growling, and lifted his fists, because humans were rarely good news. He’d thought he’d scared them off for a while after tearing through a squadron, but this one—this one was either very brave or very stupid. Hulk was going with the very stupid option.

 

But then the human whimpered, and skittered behind him into the darkest corner, curling up into a little ball. Hulk could hear the sounds of booted feet stomping down the corridor at a run. He remembered that humans weren’t just cruel to monsters; they were cruel to each other, too.

 

So he plopped down in front of the human, hiding him from view, and growled when the soldiers stopped in front of the glass wall that imprisoned him. They peered inside, shuffling their feet nervously, and he considered snarling at them just to see them jump, but decided against it; he didn’t want them to try to punish him and find the human.

 

The soldiers moved on. Hulk didn’t move until the soldiers came back, visibly angry even despite their masks, and then passed his cell again.

 

When he couldn’t hear them any longer, he turned, the bulk of his body hiding the human from the cameras. He was… small. Not child small, but not as large as the soldiers outside. He was shaking, arms circled around his knees, hands clutching at his ripped jeans with white knuckles. There were bruises on his forearms.

 

Hulk did not like seeing frightened people bruised.

 

The human peeked up at him, eyes wet, but he stubbornly didn’t let any tears fall. Hulk reassessed: the human was very brave. Stupidly brave, because he hadn’t known what Hulk would do to him, but Hulk could smell monsters on him, so clearly this boy trusted his kind.

 

“You… okay?” Hulk asked, voice raspy from lack of use. He hadn’t done anything but roar in… he didn’t know how long. There were no windows down here.

 

The human’s breath hitched, and he leapt at Hulk like some sort of frog, slamming into his stomach and clutching at him. “No-! ‘m not okay!”

 

Hulk stared down at him, frowning. He could feel the human trembling. After a moment, he placed one of his hands on the human’s back. It engulfed him, but the human just snuggled closer, sniffling quietly.

 

Hulk scowled. He would protect this boy.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Four pairs of green eyes glowed at him through the dimness of the hallway. Hulk sneered back, standing, carefully keeping the boy out of view.

 

A spider slowly slid down from the ceiling on a thick piece of silk, the red on its belly bright and deadly. It skittered over to the number pad that controlled the locking mechanism of his cell, legs delicate and spindly. There was the sound of beeping and then a loud, deep tone that startled even him. The spider reared back, hissing, and hairs shot out of its back, impaling the wall behind it. It caught the number pad between its mandibles and crushed it.

 

Hulk tried not to look too judgmental. He didn’t know if he managed it.

 

The spider noticed him looking and lifted its front pair of legs at him threateningly, hissing. It skittered on its other six legs to the side, eyes flicking back and forth through the cell.

 

Hulk remembered that the human smelled like monsters and cautiously took a step to the side to show the boy was there. If nothing else, he would have no problem squishing a bug.

 

The spider hopped up and down, front legs waving and tapping on the glass.

 

Hulk put a finger to his lips, because the human needed to sleep, so he could heal. He had bruises on his ribs that looked like the bottom of the boots the soldiers wore.

 

The spider stopped hopping to stare up at him balefully.

 

Hulk was embarrassed to admit that he jumped when the spider lunged at the glass, the claws at the ends of its mandibles smashing holes into it. Then he watched, somewhat amazed, as a green, viscous liquid was sprayed across the glass.

 

He saw the smoke before he heard the sizzle, and slowly a hole began to open up. The spider clicked at him threateningly as he approached but skittered backward just the same.

 

Hulk decided that this spider was clever. So often other monsters would try to fight him. He had no doubt that this spider _would_ fight, of course; it obviously cared about the human. But it was a smart spider. It observed before it attacked.

 

The venom tickled against his palms as he grasped at the hole. He tugged, and pieces of the glass broke away in large chunks. He made sure to wipe all the venom off on what was left of his pants before he lumbered over and carefully scooped the human up.

 

The spider skittered forward again, hissing threateningly, but Hulk just carefully eased the boy through the hole and carefully set him on the floor. The spider paused to stare up at him before it began to carefully poke the human.

 

Hulk grunted, but the human did not look afraid when he woke up and was faced with a giant spider.

 

“Natasha!” the human exclaimed, then flinched when Hulk shushed him and the spider hissed and whispered a shy, “Sorry.”

 

The spider clicked its mandibles fondly and used its front four legs to gather the human up against its belly, his skin pale against the red hourglass. When the boy lifted his hands to hug it back, its third pair of legs pushed his arms back down. Its hair would have hurt him.

 

When the spider retreated, the boy stood, legs shaking. He turned to look back at Hulk, eyes wide and hopeful. “Are you coming with us?”

 

The spider stiffened and shot hair at the wall again.

 

Hulk snorted, reluctantly amused as the spider hissed and skittered in angry circles around the human, waving her front legs at her menacingly. “No.”

 

“Natasha’s all bark and no bite,” the human insisted, and did not notice the way the spider stopped to turn and glare at him in disbelief. That was an awful lot of eyes with which to be glared at.

 

Hulk shook his head, the smile tugging at his mouth unfamiliar. He hadn’t smiled in a long time. “You go,” he ordered. “Follow spider.”

 

The spider whipped around to glare balefully again, but its back relaxed enough that it wouldn’t start shooting its hair again. _‘I don’t need your help,’_ it seemed to be saying. _‘But I can’t stop you from giving it, I suppose.’_

 

“But what about you?” the human asked worriedly, wringing his hands.

 

Hulk tilted his head as a klaxon began to ring out, and the hallway started flashing a red light. The spider made a terrible noise and began shifting, a humanoid body appearing out of its abdomen, back still covered in hairs.

 

She wrapped two hair-covered arms around the human and looked around just a touch frantically. Hulk got the impression that she’d come in to sneak the human out, and the alarms had just ruined her plans.

 

Well. He couldn’t let the soldiers hurt this human again, who was guilelessly clutching back at the spider, unafraid of her, unconcerned for her stiff, sharp hair or clicking mandibles.

 

So Hulk smashed his way through the rest of the glass and let out a roar that had the spider woman skitter backward in terror and the walls to shake, charging down the hall toward the group of soldiers running toward them.

 

He heard the human cry out, heard the spider hiss at him to shut up because this might be their only chance to escape, and then turned his attention back to the soldiers, backhanding the ones that approached him first.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony, for all that he professed that he was fine, that he was _okay, stop smothering me,_ couldn’t stop shaking for quite some time after they got him home.

 

Clint had been waiting for them when Natasha had pushed him up and out of a basement window. Steve and Bucky had been in charge of patrolling the perimeter, and had grimly told Clint to take Tony home before returning for them. Tony had tried to argue, but the thing about the monsters being so big was that it was easy to manhandle him. Natasha had wrapped him in silk so he couldn’t fight back and put him in the harness he’d created for Clint to fly him home.

 

Clint hadn’t stopped to take the silk off of him before he left to go get the others. Tony was kind of glad, relieved even. It was like being wrapped tightly in a blanket. He’d hidden in his closet until someone else got back, though.

 

The kidnappers had taken him on his way home, run him off the road, and he’d been so afraid, so terrified that he was going to die like his parents did—and then they’d started beating him for not building weapons for them and he’d wished he _had_.

 

For all that the monsters had trouble with the passage of time, they’d noticed he hadn’t come home; they were always waiting for him even though they pretended that they didn’t. They’d realized something was wrong when he didn’t even call to leave a message on the answering machine for them, knowing one of them would hear it, and Bucky had used his sensitive nose to track him down once night had fallen.

 

It was his first kidnapping after his parents’ death, the first where they’d really hurt him because Howard was more likely to fuck shit up when Tony was returned bruised.

 

Tony had trouble sleeping at night, after being rescued, even with one of the monsters curled around him when they noticed his anxiety. He couldn’t sleep, remembering his terror as he was driven off the road, as he was pulled from his car and stuffed into the back of a van, as they’d beaten him and as he’d fled, as he’d found that giant green monster and hidden behind him.

 

Natasha had scolded him, her eyes still slightly round with terror. The monster had been made up of rage and little else and it could have squashed him like a grape. Tony had nightmares of the monster doing just such a thing, crushing him between two giant fingers, or instead standing aside and letting the soldiers take him instead of hiding him like it had before.

 

So when the monster showed up one day, looking no worse for wear, Tony had to try very hard to not be afraid of him. It wouldn’t be fair of him to be afraid—the monster _had_ saved him, after all, no matter what happened in his nightmares.

 

Hulk stared at him, then smirked a little. “Spider lady told you about Hulk?”

 

Tony hunched his shoulders, ashamed. He’d been trying so hard, but apparently he’d failed, and the monster had seen his distrust. He should have been groveling and thanking the monster, not hiding halfway behind his door. “’m sorry.”

 

Hulk reached out to poke his shoulder, making his entire body rock backward. “Hulk take care of soldiers.”

 

“Oh,” Tony said softly, and felt bad again for being relieved, because it was clear that by ‘take care of,’ Hulk meant they were dead.

 

“Sleep,” Hulk said, as gently as he could muster.

 

Tony nearly burst into tears, because how could this monster know he was having nightmares? “Okay,” he answered, voice tight. Then he screamed as Hulk began to shrink, skin turning from green to pink, eyes turning brown.

 

The other monsters burst out of the house just in time to watch a human man drop to his hands and knees, vomiting, as Tony still screamed in terror.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“It was my fault,” Bruce explained, voice rough, hands wrapped around a mug of hot water with honey and lemon. “I was messing with something I shouldn’t have been, got caught by radiation. I haven’t always been a monster.”

 

The group continued to stare at him, gaping. Tony’s coffee had gone cold and he hadn’t even taken a sip of it.

 

“The army caught me, of course,” he added, mouth a grim line. “After I’d leveled a small town.” He paused. “That was… what, nineteen-sixty-two?” He looked at Tony, frowning. “How long was I down there?”

 

“It’s… It’s nineteen-ninety-five,” Tony whispered, horrified.

 

Bruce tilted his head, frowning, feeling… mostly numb. “Thirty-three years. It feels like yesterday and a hundred years ago at the same time.”

 

“That happens,” Steve said, shrugging, unaware he was brushing off the human’s concerns. “The passage of time is strange when it doesn’t affect you. Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday that Tony was a toddler.”

 

Bruce nodded vacantly, then sighed, sagging onto the table. He suddenly felt exhausted down to his bones. “Is it alright if I stay here? Until I figure out who I can contact.” He paused, staring out the window, but not really seeing anything, too busy thinking about everything in his life that he had missed while he was ‘gone.’ “I’m more Hulk than Bruce now. Maybe I should have stayed in that cell.”

 

“No!” Tony blurted out immediately, dismayed. “You can stay here forever if you want to! You protected me, so I can protect you!”

 

The monsters turned and gave Tony an appalled look before grouping together to the side, quietly panicking.

 

Bruce was silent for a long time, considering, before he turned a tired smile on him. “You’re going to give your friends ulcers.”

 

“Probably,” Tony admitted, turning to watch as the monsters whispered amongst themselves about what to do if Bruce—or the Hulk—ever got out of hand, because Tony was smart and clever and charismatic and even if Bruce said no at first, Tony would probably wheedle and connive until he convinced Bruce to say yes instead.

 

“What’s an ulcer?” Bucky asked, distracted.

 

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. Bruce managed to huff out a laugh—his first one in over thirty years.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For visuals of the monsters, here you go! These links will all lead you to the Tumblr pages:
> 
> ifdragonscouldtalk drew [this](http://ifdragonscouldtalk.tumblr.com/post/160787574267/i-drew-loki-from-reioka-s-monster-au-i-wasnt) picture of Loki.
> 
> caramelldraws drew [these](https://thecatthatfellincaramell.tumblr.com/post/160805599174/got-a-random-need-to-scribble-a-few-designs-for) pictures of Steve, Bucky, Natasha, and Loki.
> 
> And novarain01 drew [this](https://novarain01.tumblr.com/post/161793674646/based-on-reiokas-monster-au-i-recommend-everyone) picture of Steve, Bucky, and Tony, [this](https://novarain01.tumblr.com/post/161793788366/based-on-reiokas-monster-au-i-recommend-everyone) picture of Natasha and a child Tony, and [this](https://novarain01.tumblr.com/post/161811499421/inspired-by-reiokas-monster-au-bird-clint) picture of Clint and a child Tony.

Tony stumbled into the kitchen, hands slapping at the counter irritably until he found a mug. He muttered under his breath as he poured himself a cup of coffee, taking a long, slow sip as he turned around to lean against the counter. The coffee was cold, but it would get the job done until he could get more made.

 

He squinted blearily over the edge of his cup at what looked like a man with icy white skin and golden antlers sitting at the table and reading the newspaper. He considered what he’d had to drink the night before—a couple beers but nothing major. Had he been drugged?

 

He was seriously considering whether or not one of the monsters might have accidentally drugged him when the man glanced at him with glowing green eyes. He stared back.

 

The man’s eyes went back to the newspaper he’d been reading. “Greetings, human.”

 

Tony wasn’t even aware he still received a physical newspaper. “Hello,” he said belatedly, for lack of anything else. He took another sip of coffee because he was _not_ awake enough for this bullshit. “Who’re you?”

 

The man tilted his head thoughtfully, letting out a little ‘hmm’ before he finally said, “My family calls me Loki.”

 

Tony squinted at him skeptically. That wasn’t the same as ‘my name is.’ “Do you _like_ being called Loki?”

 

Loki paused to consider it, as if he’d never thought about whether he liked what his family called him. Tony didn’t understand; he often lamented being named Anthony instead of something cool. “As I have no other name to be called,” Loki began slowly. “I suppose I do not mind it.”

 

“Okay, reindeer games,” Tony mumbled, because ‘he supposed he didn’t mind?’ Please. He slowly made his way over to the man, sipping his coffee. He peered at the shiny golden antlers for a moment, then flicked one. It _rang_ like the metal, and it certainly hurt his finger like it too. He wondered if it was soft like actual gold, too.

 

“What are you doing?!” Loki snapped, jerking away from him, and tugging his antler out of the way of the human’s teeth. “Were you going to _bite_ me?!”

 

Tony huffed, scowling petulantly at him. He wouldn’t have hurt the monster. Probably. “I just wanted to see if they were soft.”

 

“They are not!” Loki said loudly, nearly shouting, and looking incredibly pissed.

 

“Okay, man, chill out,” Tony complained, as if he had not been about to put his mouth on the monster’s person. Steve would have let him bite him. …Maybe not anyone else though. Clint and Hulk maybe? Definitely not Natasha or Bucky, though. “Gosh, you guys sure are grumpy,” he mumbled, walking back over to the coffee machine.

 

Loki visibly tensed, not that Tony saw it. “…There are more monsters here?”

 

“Yeah, Steve, Bucky, Natasha, Clint, and Bruce,” Tony said, counting on his fingers as he dumped some more grounds in the coffee maker with his other hand. He paused, then hesitantly put up another one. “And Hulk? Hulk and Bruce are kind of the same person but also not. I don’t understand and Bruce just kinda gives me an ‘eh’ when I pester him about it.”

 

Loki relaxed, just a little. “I see.”

 

“Probably watch out for Natasha though,” Tony added, shoving his mug directly under the spigot where the coffee was starting to pour out. “She’s shown a worrying lack of shame about eating people.”

 

The monster blinked at him. “…And she lives here.”

 

“Yes,” Tony said, watching his mug fill up.

 

“…With you.”

 

“Uh huh,” Tony said, and hurriedly switched his mug for the actual coffee pot.

 

Loki covered his mouth as he stared at the human in concern. What a worrying lack of self-preservation. He’d known that humans could be stupid, but this… this was a new low. He’d never seen someone so careless about their own safety.

 

“I’m gonna go blow something up,” Tony said. He began to circle the table and paused when he saw that the monster didn’t have human legs, but what looked like the rear legs of an albino deer.  He looked quite uncomfortable. “…I can bring you a stool.”

 

Loki shook his head. He’d really rather have Tony just leave him alone as he tried wrap his mind around him. “Nay.”

 

“Nay?” Tony repeated in disbelief, then rolled his eyes, taking a long sip of coffee. “Fucking nay, he says.”

 

Loki raised his eyebrows as the boy wandered out of the kitchen, muttering to himself. “…What is wrong with ‘nay?’” he murmured, but was almost too afraid of an actual answer.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Steve looked over his shoulder as he slithered into the workshop, frowning. “Hey, did you know there’s a guy with antlers in your library?”

 

“So he’s not in the kitchen anymore?” Tony asked, lifting his goggles. “He said his name’s Loki.”

 

“Weird,” Steve said, coming up behind him to wrap his arms around the human’s waist. He had an adorable ring of clean skin left behind where his goggles had been. Steve loved it. “Is he staying here?”

 

“I have no idea,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes and slapping the monster’s hand away when he tried to dip it under his waistband. “Steve, I’m welding here.”

 

Steve pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, using just a little bit of fang, the way he knew Tony liked it. “So stop welding.”

 

Tony shivered and bit his bottom lip as the monster began pressing little nipping kisses up and down his neck and shoulder, gooseflesh rising along his arms at the light press of fangs against his delicate skin. “I need to get this done.”

 

“ _You_ need to get done,” Steve countered smugly, hand slipping down to grab at the human’s crotch again. Then he screamed as he was covered in foam. “Agh that’s cold!”

 

Tony snorted and turned to give Dum-E a proud smile. “Guess Dum-E thought you were getting a little too hot.”

 

“I thought you liked me,” Steve told the robot, hurt, as he pulled his hands away from the human.

 

Dum-E beeped and waved the fire extinguisher cheerfully.

 

“Mean,” Steve whined, like the child he secretly was. He considered smacking the fire extinguisher out of the robot’s claw, but it was quite possible Dum-E would just pick up a wrench and throw it at him, and Steve only had to be hit with a wrench once to decide he never wanted it to happen again. He turned back to Tony petulantly. “Fine, but when you come up to get cleaned up, I’m showering with you.”

 

Tony rolled his eyes fondly, because it wasn’t like he was opposed to some petting. “Fine.

 

Steve leered at him. “…And by showering, I mean fu—”

 

“I _know,_ ” Tony cut in, rolling his eyes again. “I’m not an idiot, unlike you, Mister tries-to-fondle-me-in-the-workshop-when-Dum-E’s-here.’”

 

Steve pouted, crossing his arms. “So when were you going to tell us about the new guy?” he asked, instead of being snotty, because he was an adult and didn’t want to give Tony more ammunition to tease him with.

 

“When I figured out what to say about him,” Tony admitted, fiddling with his safety goggles. “He just showed up this morning.”

 

Steve tilted his head. “Weird,” he muttered to himself thoughtfully.

 

Tony frowned, concerned. “Bad weird?” Nothing bad had happened to him involving the monsters yet, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think it would never happen.

 

“…Yet to be determined weird,” the monster decided. “I’ll do some recon.”

 

“I think you could just go up to him and ask what he wants, Steve,” Tony suggested gently. “He seems like a nice guy.”

 

“You thought Tiberius Stone was a nice guy,” Steve hissed, shooting him a glare, before slithering out of the workshop.

 

Tony would be hurt by the reminder of his past relationship where he’d been so wrong, except every time Ty saw him these days, he went ghost-white and ran in the other direction. He didn’t know what (or which one, for that matter) the monster(s?) had done, but they’d obviously done something. He figured ignorance was bliss. (And he also figured the monsters would never tell him the truth about what they’d done anyway.)

 

.-.-.-.

 

“He is _not_ a nice guy,” Clint snapped when Tony went to say hi to him. He turned to show Tony his back. “Look!”

 

Tony frowned in concern when he saw the patch of missing feathers and the two puncture wounds in the monster’s flesh. He was about to try to comfort him, but then he noticed where, exactly, on the monster’s body that the punctures were. “…Were you trying to roost on his antlers?”

 

“Well they’re big!” Clint answered immediately, defensive. “He wasn’t doin’ anything with ‘em!”

 

“Clint,” Tony sighed.

 

“Well he wasn’t!” the monster snapped, hopping up to roost on the back of the couch. He made sure to keep his back to Tony so that the human could tell he was being snubbed.

 

“Stop trying to roost on people!” Tony ordered, then paused before adding a slow, “…Without permission.” Hulk always let Clint perch on him. Hulk always held Clint like he was afraid he might crush him though. “Not everyone is like you guys, with no boundaries.”

 

Clint scoffed, ruffling his feathers irritably. “Well! See if I roost on _you_ anymore!”

 

Tony glared at his back. He’d love it if Clint stopped roosting on him. He was heavy and always knocked Tony over if Tony didn’t just immediately crumple to the ground under his weight first.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“So, uh,” Tony asked awkwardly, hovering in the entry to the library.

 

Loki lifted his gaze from the book he’d been reading.

 

Tony shuffled his feet, feeling out-of-place and shy for reasons he couldn’t name. “…You can read?” he asked lamely, not what he’d been meaning to ask, but a question he suddenly wanted an answer to all the same.

 

Loki tilted his head to acknowledge that he’d heard him, but he stayed silent for a few minutes, thinking. “…Is that so strange?”

 

“None of the others can read,” Tony began, then stopped, thinking about it. “Or, well. Bruce can. Hulk can read, too, and he _likes_ to, he just has trouble turning small pages with his gigantic fingers. The others just… choose not to learn, I think.”

 

“Ah,” Loki said, and he actually understood, for the most part. It was hard to learn to read when you had to hide for most of your life. Not to mention how many languages and letters there were nowadays. It had been easier to learn when he was young, when there were so few written languages at all.

 

“Anyway,” Tony added, looking away, and began wringing his hands nervously, because now that he was fully awake, he was getting some really weird vibes from the monster. “I, uh, wanted to apologize for Clint, since he’s probably never going to. For, um. Roosting. …On your head.”

 

Loki raised an eyebrow and answered, “Ah.”

 

“So, um. Sorry. For Clint. He’s trying really hard but he doesn’t understand most social cues.” Tony jumped as the monster stood. He’d never seen him at full height—Loki had been kneeling at the kitchen table, and he’d been sprawled on one of the couches when Tony had come into the library.

 

The monster was… intimidatingly tall. He was nearly as tall as Hulk, all long, lean lines from shoulder to hoof. He should have seemed delicate, waifish even, with his cervine features, but Loki just looked powerful, the muscles in his legs bulging and his chest all hard lines. With his antlers, he looked incredibly regal, almost as if he was wearing a golden crown, and it also made him look incredibly terrifying.

 

Loki reached out to cup Tony's cheek, skin cool against his own, the tips of his fingers in hard, blunt, hoof-like material that pressed almost painfully into his face. “You are a good human.”

 

Tony blinked up at him with wide eyes, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Where had that survival instinct been when he’d first come into the library? “Y-yeah?”

 

“I hope,” Loki began softly, then paused. “…That you continue to be.”

 

Tony squeaked, terrified, and he wasn’t even ashamed of it, because that sounded _incredibly ominous_. “O-okay.”

 

Before he could say anything else, Natasha dropped from the ceiling, hissing quietly as she glared at the other monster. She approached swiftly and with purpose, hairs poised at the ready to shoot if he threatened her. “If you do not take your hand off of him at once, I will rip off one of your antlers and I will _shove it up your ass_.”

 

Loki held his hands up placatingly and even backed off a few steps. “My apologies.”

 

“I don’t know what you want, trickster, but if you hurt Tony in _any_ way,” she added, just a hint wild-eyed, hairs trembling on end as she curled her hands into fists. “I will fetch the Hulk and he will tear you limb from limb. And then I’ll eat your guts, and I’ll _like it_.”

 

“My apologies,” Loki repeated firmly, looking her right in the eye as he did.

 

Tony looked back and forth between them, brows furrowed together in confusion. Eventually, though, both monsters relaxed, and then Natasha was whirling him around to frogmarch him out the door. He got the feeling he was in big trouble—Natasha had taken on scolding him ever since Bucky had once gotten so angry he’d eaten an entire cake to keep from gnashing something priceless in his teeth.

 

“You are quite possible the most unconsciously suicidal human I have ever met,” Natasha spat, and Tony’s shoulders fell. “Do not trust Loki, even for a minute. He’s an old monster.”

 

Tony was quiet for a few minutes before he hesitantly asked, “Older than you?”

 

Natasha paused, making him slow down as well. It looked as if she was weighing her words, trying to figure out how to convey her thoughts so that didn’t over- or downplay the gravity of it. “Older than the rest of us combined,” she said slowly. “He’s still got Old Magic clinging to him like a cape of dust. I’m not sure anyone but Steve and Bucky would have noticed, and perhaps not even them, because that sort of magic was swallowed up by humans before they could get a proper taste.”

 

“But _you_ know it,” Tony said, frowning at her, brows furrowed as she started moving him down the hall. “The—the taste?”

 

Natasha stopped again, shoulders stiff, looking very uncomfortable. “…I know _of_ the taste. Sometimes if you go into the deepest, darkest forests, or the deepest, darkest caves, you can find Old Magic. Places where humans haven’t touched. I was too frightened to approach the one I did find,” she whispered, voice small, and Tony couldn’t help but swallow thickly over the fact that something had scared _Natasha_. “There’s a feeling to it, of great power, that’s terrifying to behold.”

 

She shivered, then began walking again, pulling at him. “Only old monsters know how to wield it properly, and there’s so few of them left. I shudder to think of what life would be like for humans if more of _those_ monsters walked the land still.”

 

Tony shivered as well. That… that sounded horrifying. “Should I ask him to leave?” He would, if it meant Natasha being comfortable.

 

Natasha knew that, and she loved him for it, even as she answered, “Creatures like Loki leave only when they mean to leave, Tony.” She swallowed nervously, aware she’d probably be on high alert as long as the old monster was there. “I can only hope he does so soon.”

 

Tony curled up into her side as they walked toward the stairs, only relaxing when her two left arms curled around him. “…But you threatened him with Hulk.”

 

“You heard Bruce,” Natasha said quietly, curling her arms tighter around him protectively. “He’d been messing with something that he shouldn’t have been. You can’t taste the Old Magic on him when he’s the Hulk. But you can when he’s human, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the change.”

 

Tony shivered again, feeling even luckier that Hulk hadn’t crushed him when he’d hidden behind him.


	9. Chapter 9

“You shouldn’t be down here.”

 

Loki tilted his head, mindful not to knock any of the lights with his antlers. He hated fixing them.

 

Clint hopped further into the workshop, his wings spread menacingly, talons shining like obsidian in the dim light. He was always massive, but this made him look even bigger, and equally more dangerous. “You shouldn’t be down here,” he repeated coldly. “Tony’s not here. It’s not allowed.”

 

“And yet you are here,” Loki pointed out idly, side-stepping a stool to lean down and examine a truly peculiar-looking device on the table.

 

“I saw you come down here. You need to leave,” Clint insisted, hopping after him even though he knew he looked more comical than threatening when he did. He let out an irritated sigh when the other monster swiveled to examine the three robots huddled fearfully in the corner. “Leave them alone! You’re scaring them!”

 

Loki ignored him, instead reaching out to tap one blunt finger to the closest robot’s claw. It flinched away from him and beeped, sounding… almost fearful. The other two robots let out shrill screeches and lunged at him with their claws threateningly. One threw a fire extinguisher at him.

 

Loki ducked the fire extinguisher and drew his hand back, not afraid, but considered the little creatures might rush him anyway. He took a step backward. He didn’t want to hurt them. It wasn’t their fault they were scared of him. “I didn’t know that humans could still make these.”

 

Clint paused in his hopping after him, talons curling into the floor. He looked around Tony’s workshop. He couldn’t tell what the old monster was talking about, though. “…Make what?”

 

“Golems,” Loki replied, taking another step back when the clunkiest of the bunch lunged at him again with an angry whirring noise. “The last I had heard of was in Prague, called Yossele. That was… five centuries ago? I had thought the art had been lost.”

 

Clint hopped over to him, wings still spread awkwardly. He hated looking so much like a bird in front of this guy. “Yeah? I heard that Tony made his first one when he was fourteen. He couldn’t help his crest rising proudly when the other monster looked reluctantly impressed. “Isn’t that right, Dum-E?”

 

The clunkiest robot beeped and spun in a circle victoriously, as if to say ‘yes, I was the first and best.’

 

Loki covered his mouth with his hand to hide an amused smile. He did not remember Yossele being so rambunctious. Then again, it _had_ been quite busy protecting its Jewish community at the time. “I would have never been able to imagine a metal golem,” he admitted, mostly to himself, but partly to Clint, because Clint wasn’t old like him, but he was old enough to relate to most of the time.

 

“Yeah,” Clint murmured, settling, talons scratching the floor as he looked around the workshop again. “Tony is a clever human. He even made a golem without a body.”

 

“Without a body,” Loki repeated, frowning, then turned to look at Clint sharply. “You mean The Voice, Jarvis? He is not a demon whom Tony has wrested control over?”

 

Clint blinked up at him in confusion and shook his head slowly, frowning. “No. I remember when he was creating Jarvis. He would spend hours at his computer. The closer he got to finishing, the more wild he looked. I remember, it was like watching a shaman work, getting closer and closer to the end of their ceremony or dance.” He turned to look back at the bots, feathers ruffling and then settling again. “When Jarvis finally spoke, Tony had been awake for several days. And then he burst into tears. His ceremony worked.”

 

“Interesting,” Loki admitted, unable to make a snide comment about something so impressive, and finally turned away from the robots. He did not remember how long it took to create Yossele, but he did remember Judah Loew ben Bezale celebrating when the golem protected them. “Is crying Anthony’s typical manner of celebration?”

 

“Man, he’d been awake for several days. _Anyone_ would cry after years of hard work paid off,” Clint scoffed, then turned and began hopping toward the door. “Now _come on_. We’re not supposed to be down here without permission ever since Bucky accidentally set himself on fire. With exception of Steve because his scales protect him.”

 

Loki pretended that didn’t worry him even as he followed the other monster out of the workshop.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Bucky and Steve were morose.

 

“Unbecoming,” Natasha said.

 

Loki did not snort even though he wanted to. “Quite.”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Steve ordered without his usual heat. He slithered off the couch and onto the floor, whining quietly as he coiled himself tight. “Why does he have to leeeeave?”

 

“Tony’s very important,” Bucky replied, trying to sound proud, but mostly only managing to sound petulant. “The humans need his time.”

 

“Humans can go blow!” Steve snapped, then slithered under the couch with a huff.

 

Loki leaned toward Natasha, frowning. “‘Go blow?’”

 

“Yeah, I have no idea,” Natasha replied with a shrug. “Basically he wants humans to just leave Tony alone because they’re hogging him.”

 

“Oh,” Loki said, and only vaguely understood. “Where _is_ Anthony?”

 

Natasha shrugged again. “Showing off some new bomb. The humans are excited about it.”

 

Loki looked toward her, brows furrowing together. “Anthony… makes bombs?”

 

“Well, weapons,” she amended. “Of all sorts. It would be disappointing except for the way he gushes about keeping America’s troops safe.” She paused, remembering a time years ago when she’d delicately tethered snipers to branches so they wouldn’t fall when they slept, when she’d dragged injured men closer to campfires. “I don’t understand humans and their wars, but I can respect that Tony wants to keep people safe.”

 

Loki frowned thoughtfully. “With the golems he created, I had expected him to be purely a creator. Not a destroyer as well.”

 

Natasha turned to stare at him, confused, then assumed when he said ‘golems’ that he meant Tony’s robots. “Tony’s a human,” she said after a moment. “They’ve always created and destroyed. Holding Tony to a different standard simply because he is more brilliant than other humans would be unfair.”

 

“Mm,” Loki hummed, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Anthony was an interesting human, at least. The creatures were so vapid these days; it was refreshing to find one that was different. He could not say whether he liked or disliked the boy, but he was interested to see what more he could create.

 

“Guys!” Bruce exclaimed, bursting into the living room. “ _Guys!_ ”

 

Loki stepped back into the shadows hurriedly. He did not fear Bruce. But the creature he turned into… _That_ creature was a terrifying mixture of Old and new, a creature of rage and instinct. He stayed out of its way as much as possible, and so stayed out of Bruce’s way as well.

 

Steve slithered out from under the couch in concern, and Bucky unfolded from being curled up on top of one of Tony’s old sweaters that still smelled heavily of his scent. Clint hopped around to face the room instead of glaring out the window. Natasha took a step forward, face set into a serious mask to hide the trepidation the tone Bruce had taken had caused.

 

“I was listening—I was listening to the radio,” Bruce panted, clutching his chest, knuckles gone white. His eyes flickered green and brown. “To hear what Tony—to keep at least an ear on him-! His convoy was attacked! He—everyone’s _dead_ —”

 

It felt as if the room had dropped several degrees as soon as the statement registered.

 

Bruce clutched the doorway, making an annoyed sound when he crushed it in his palms, wood splintering everywhere, piercing his hands. “Not—not _Tony_. But the soldiers he was with—they, they’re all dead. Tony—they _took_ Tony.”

 

Clint let out a horrified screech, flapping his wings hard enough that he tore down the curtains by their posts.

 

“What do we do?” Bucky asked quickly, standing up straight. It was only a matter of time before they lost Bruce to the Hulk, to his anger and hate, and the Hulk wouldn’t be able to help, not really. “Bruce, what do we do?”

 

“All we know is that he’s in Afghanistan,” Bruce admitted, the green in his eyes staying longer, visibly struggling to keep to his human form. “And there’s—there’s mounts and caves. It would take so long to find him—who knows what condition he’d be in by the time we got there.”

 

Steve writhed anxiously for a few seconds, then steeled himself. “We have to do _something_. We can’t just—just _leave_ him out there!”

 

“The people there are very religious, or very superstitious,” Natasha pointed out, the hairs on her back standing on end. She valiantly tried to force them back down. “We’re monsters. They’ll shoot first and ask questions later. We won’t be any good to Tony dead.”

 

Clint crushed the windowsill in his talons angrily. “We won’t be any good to Tony sitting on our asses, either!”

 

Bruce let out a wounded noise, doubling over with pain, before he let out a bone-rattling roar, and suddenly the Hulk was there instead, destroying the rest of the doorway. He roared again and reached out to grab one of the couches, flinging it across the room.

 

“Br—Hulk!” Steve exclaimed helplessly even as he slithered out of the way. “No! We need—we can’t just destroy things until we figure something out-!”

 

Loki finally stepped forward, because Steve was right, and they didn’t have time to spare. He lifted his hands, and gold threads wrapped around the Hulk’s arms before he throw anything or any _one_ else. “This is not conducive to a rescue, _creature_.”

 

The Hulk roared, and tugged, and Loki’s hooves skidded across the wood floor in the effort to hold the other monster tight in his golden threads.

 

“You will not threaten me,” Loki said, even though he felt frightened, even though this monster of Old and new was tugging his magic around like so much paper, would probably tear him apart if he got his hands on him. “You will not threaten me while a Creator needs you to stay calm. You are doing him no service destroying his things.”

 

Hulk roared again, swinging around, and Loki nearly— _nearly_ —yelped as his hooves skidded across the floor again, losing his balance.

 

Clint caught him by the antlers with a screech, holding him upright, and his voice was just slightly terrified as he shouted, “Don’t let him go!”

 

Loki had no intention of doing so, because he was quite certain that the Hulk would turn his aggression on him instead, and that wasn’t a position he ever wanted to be in. Still, he couldn’t help his surprise when Steve and Natasha both ran and leapt upon the larger monster.

 

Steve’s tail constricted around the Hulk’s arms, holding them in place, and Natasha skittered as quickly as she could, wrapping her silk around him, trying to keep him pinned. Hulk jerked, and they both yelped before Steve constricted again, muscles straining to hold the other monster’s arms down. Bucky scrambled over to press his back against Loki’s front, his paw pads much more suited to the wooden floor than the Old monster’s hooves. Loki used the extra traction to tug hard on the gold threads.

 

The Hulk continued to roar angrily, struggling, but with the combined force of Loki’s magic, and Natasha’s silk, and Steve’s sheer stubbornness, they eventually subdued him. Loki didn’t relax until the other monster stopped roaring, and still kept a thread of magic wrapped around him just in case.

 

“…Let us never do that again,” Loki suggested when the Hulk finally stopped struggling, and the other four monsters nodded tiredly.

 

“What are we going to do?” Natasha asked softly, and it was… most concerning, to see how her shoulders hunched, the way she twisted her fingers in fear. She didn’t usually show how anxious she was in a visible way. “There are so many nooks and crannies in the desert where he could be. I—I’m not suited for a desert, really. I… could manage, perhaps. But I would definitely be out of place.”

 

Bucky sat down on the floor, looking forlorn. “It would be too hot for me with my fur, wouldn’t it? And the sands would blow around so much—I wouldn’t find a scent anyway.”

 

“I could?” Steve offered, but then his face crumpled, and his voice went bitter. “I’m no tracker, though. I’d survive and then have nothing to show for it. It’s not use, me going, if I have no idea where he’d be.”

 

“Ant it’s not like I could help you with that,” Clint added, just as bitter, as he roosted on Loki’s antlers. “If they have him in a cave, I’d have no idea.”

 

Loki opened his mouth to tell the avian monster to get off, but Clint wasn’t heavy, and he was… quite tired after all the struggle of getting the Hulk down. “…I know someone who could help.”

 

“Will they eat him?” Steve asked immediately.

 

Loki gaped at him, appalled, hand going to his chest.

 

“I was going to eat him the first time we met,” Natasha offered—or, perhaps, explained.

 

“…Well,” Loki said, for lack of anything else.

 

“Tony bribed me not to with soup.”

 

“WELL.”

 

“So will they eat him, or not?” Bucky asked, scowling. He shuffled impatiently. They were losing time the more they bickered. “Because if there’s a chance they’ll eat him, we decline. Strenuously.”

 

“He will not eat Anthony,” Loki sighed, and allowed himself the luxury of rolling his eyes, _hard_. “…Admittedly, he has not had much interaction with present-day humans, howev—”

 

Clint squawked, jumping a little. “You wanna send one of your kind after him?! They’re totally gonna eat him!”

 

“He will _not!_ ” Loki snapped, and then silently scolded himself, fuming, for sounding like a child. “This is his only chance. We can’t just let _him_ gallivant all over looking for Anthony,” he added, motioning at the Hulk.

 

The monsters grumbled angrily, but truly, their hands were tied. There was no telling if Jim had been killed or injured when they convoy was attacked, so Tony could very well be all alone out there. All alone, and possibly injured, and maybe… maybe wondering if someone would come help him, like they’d done before. And also wondering why they hadn’t, if they didn’t get to him in time to help him.

 

They couldn’t just leave him out there. So they agreed.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony shivered. He could hear thunder rumbling in the distance. He wondered if it was as cold outside of the cave as it was inside it. “You get many storms out here?”

 

Yinsen hummed thoughtfully as he stared down at the backgammon board. “Depends on the season, really.”

 

Thunder rumbled again. Tony kind of wished he was closer to the entrance of the cave, so he could see the lightning and count how many miles away the storm was.

 

Yinsen paused, then lifted his head, frowning. “…It’s not the season, though.”

 

Tony shouted and covered his ears as thunder suddenly crashed… inside the cave? It was like cymbals were being smashed together against his eardrums. The Ten Rings were yelling, and shooting, but the thunder came again, only… only it sounded an awful lot like roaring.

 

Tony yelped when the cave was suddenly filled with light, electricity crackling over the walls. Yinsen was yelling something, clutching at him, but Tony couldn’t hear what the words were. He allowed himself to be dragged to the back of the cave, clinging back to Yinsen with white knuckles. Tony turned to look back to the mouth of the cave, too curious to hide his face like Yinsen was. He choked back a scream when he saw the hulking figure there, one of his captors crushed under a single, massive paw.


	10. Chapter 10

Thor was monstrous in size, with a thick, golden mane like threads of actual gold. His paws were large enough to crush a grown man without even involving his claws, and whatever humans didn’t get crushed under them were body-checked into the walls, which were still live with lightning. The electricity made his mane stand on end, and it should have looked comical, but he just looked even more terrifying.

 

He’d scooped Tony and Yinsen up in his teeth like kittens and carried them out of the cave. The change from cold and damp to hot and arid made Tony’s teeth ache. He could hear Yinsen, babbling something—they were probably prayers. But who wouldn’t pray when they were literally hanging out of a monster’s mouth? (Tony didn’t look at Yinsen. He didn’t want to see the terror on his face. It was selfish, but he didn’t like seeing people afraid of monsters, especially when so often it was the monsters rescuing him from humans.)

 

Yinsen wouldn’t remember. He’d think it was a storm, a short, an explosion—anything but what had really happened. Thor had made sure of it. Tony had begged—Yinsen had kept him alive, kept him _sane_ , it wasn’t fair that he wouldn’t remember. He could make Yinsen see that monsters weren’t terrible, that Ten Rings was worse than Thor could ever be. But Thor had calmly explained that most humans could not handle the truth, that monsters were real—and not everyone was as clever as Tony was. It was better for Yinsen to forget.

 

Tony clung to Thor’s back and shivered as the monster trotted further out into the sand. Yinsen had been left near a town where he could get help, but Thor had insisted on taking Tony with him. He’d been too tired, sore, and thirsty to argue with him—and he got the feeling that any arguing would have just been met with a deep, incredulous laugh before he was scooped up like a naughty kitten again.

 

“Here,” Thor said, like he’d decided something that Tony couldn’t hope to understand. He knelt, front legs folding down delicately, like he wasn’t all powerful muscle and sinew. “Dismount, child.”

 

“’m not a child,” Tony mumbled petulantly, but obediently slid down to the ground, the monster’s silky fur slipping through his hands like water. Thor seemed like the type of monster who would take guff with amusement up until he lost his patience. Tony didn’t want to test his patience, at least not right now.

 

Thor looked at him after he stood up straight again, eyes warm and somewhat fond. “Even your oldest human is yet a child in comparison to me, Anthony.”

 

Tony blinked up at him blearily, rubbing his eyes to try and block out the haze, dry from the arid air. “Are you leaving me?” he asked when he noticed Thor wasn’t settling down to sit with him. “Why couldn’t you leave me with Yinsen?”

 

“I could not be certain you would not insist on telling him the truth again. Most humans cannot handle that, Anthony,” Thor said, voice kind but very, very firm. He smiled, and his teeth were long and sharp beneath his lips. “You must be special, Anthony, for Loki to reach out to me for help.”

 

Tony blinked up at him again, bewildered at the seeming non-sequitur. “Loki?”

 

“Yes, Loki, my dear brother,” Thor chortled, amused.

 

“What,” Tony said, either too dehydrated or, more likely, too baffled to understand the link between what could best be described as a white deer and this golden, leonine creature. Thor was already much warmer and kinder than Loki had been when they first met, and he couldn’t fathom how the two could even be tangentially related beyond ‘they’re both old as fuck.’ “How did—”

 

“I leave you here, Anthony,” Thor boomed, voice seeming much louder than before, as if he’d been consciously holding it down. Then there was a crash of thunder, a flash of lightning, and the monster was gone. There weren’t even any paw prints, which seemed impossible, because all of that muscle should have been heavy.

 

“…You left me in the _desert_ ,” Tony told the air mulishly.

 

But he wasn’t going to get anywhere just standing there like an idiot. He shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked up at a dune. He might be able to see something from there. He started trudging toward it. Maybe Thor had left him near another town. It would probably be better for him to wander in from the desert than be dropped from a giant monster’s back.

 

Tony didn’t notice that Rhodey had been approaching, and he yelled and flailed when an arm wrapped around his waist, elbowing his friend in the cheek. It took him a moment to realize it was his friend, and that Thor must have left him in empty sand to be found by a helicopter, the only thing that wasn’t sand-colored for miles.

 

Rhodey didn’t even look like he minded being elbowed, which meant it probably felt like he was being elbowed by a baby bird. “Next time,” he said sternly, eyes glassy with tears even as he smiled at him. “You ride with me.”

 

“Okay,” Tony said, unashamed of how tearful he sounded. He’d been gone from home for a very long time, and he wanted to see his friends and eat maybe ten cheeseburgers.

 

Rhodey tightened his grip around his waist, seeming to understand everything he meant with just that one word. “I got you, man. We’re gonna get you home.”

 

.-.-.-.

 

Pepper and Obadiah brought Tony home. The monsters would have wondered why they had instead of whoever Loki had sent for, but they were just too happy to have him back. It was irritating that they had to hide in the shadows and wait to greet him when all they wanted to do was check him over for injuries and then hold him and never let him go. Obadiah always set their teeth on edge, though, and Pepper… Pepper always sighed when she saw them.

 

“What is that?” Steve whispered sharply, jerking his elbow into Bucky’s side. “Bucky, what is that?”

 

“What’s what?” Bucky asked, distracted, then grunted when Steve elbowed him again. “Ow!” He turned, bearing his teeth at Steve with a low growl. “What the fuck!?”

 

Steve pointed at Tony, scowling with frustration. “ _Look!_ ”

 

Bucky grumbled to himself, rubbing his side and cursing Steve’s pointy, scale-protected elbows. He frowned when he finally saw the glowing blue light under Tony’s shirt. He almost couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before, but sometimes Steve saw things on different frequencies if he wasn’t focusing. He wondered what the light was, but was too distracted by worrying when he noticed the pale, bruised skin on Tony’s chest. Tony had been gone a long time, and looked it, the way his clothes hung too loosely on him and his eyes were sunken in his face, with deep bruises under each eye.

 

He hoped at least Obadiah left soon. He wondered what he should feed Tony.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Obadiah left, and Pepper chased Tony to the bathroom when he took off at a sprint.

 

Steve slithered after them, peering around the door into the bathroom. “Everything alright?”

 

“The doctors _told_ him a cheeseburger would be too much,” Pepper sighed, gently rubbing Tony’s back as he heaved his stomach contents into the toilet. She didn’t turn to face him, mostly because she didn’t want to look at Steve but also because she didn’t want to miss it if Tony indicated he needed help. “Hi, Steve.”

 

Natasha dropped from the ceiling and onto Steve before he could reply, ignoring his offended noise as she slammed his upper body into the ground and knocked the air out of him. “Is Tony okay?”

 

Pepper grimaced and was glad they couldn’t really see it. “Ehm… Kinda?”

 

“Kinda,” Clint repeated skeptically, filling the doorway. “What’s ‘kinda’ mean?”

 

“…He’s alive,” Pepper decided. It seemed like the most innocuous thing she could say.

 

Tony sat up straight, gasping for breath, making concerning little wheezing noises. Then he bent forward to puke again, sobbing quietly.

 

Steve sat up so fast that he sent Natasha flying into the bathtub. He ignored her cursing and threats to slither up beside the boy, placing his hands on his heaving ribs gently. “Tony, it’s okay. You’re home. We’ve got you.”

 

“Hurts,” Tony whispered, like just the admission made him ashamed, let alone the actual pain.

 

Steve pretended that didn’t make him want to panic, his precious human being in pain. “Where does it hurt, honey?”

 

Tony choked out a despairing, hurt, “Everywhere-!”

 

Steve slumped a little, defeated, stroking his hands up and down the brunet’s sides helplessly. “I can’t help with that.”

 

Pepper reached out to touch his shoulder and proved how far she’d come in accepting them by not flinching when her skin met his scales. “I don’t think _anyone_ can help with the kind of pain he’s in, Steve,” she said, a warning and a try for comfort all at once.

 

“Is he done puking? Give him to me,” Clint ordered, holding his wings out. Natasha wet a washcloth in the tub to wipe Tony’s face with before Steve obediently handed him over. Clint bundled the human into his wings, hiding all but the toes of his shoes and a little bit of his hair. He turned and hopped gently out of the bathroom, being careful not to jostle him, because Tony let out a pathetic little mew when Steve had passed him into his wings. “This is mine now,” he informed everyone imperiously as he continued moving.

 

“What the fuck, Clint?!” Steve called after him, offended, and he would have followed, but Pepper’s hand was still on his shoulder, which was very unusual. She did not typically like touching him. He turned toward her, frowning. “…Ms. Potts?”

 

Natasha paused from trying to clamber out of the bathtub, feet slipping on the slick porcelain, taking in the human’s hand on Steve’s shoulder and the expression on her face in concern. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Tony was… injured,” Pepper explained slowly, trying to find the right words. It was hard. Sometimes the monsters just didn’t understand human concepts of pain and injury. “He almost died. Should have, really, if we’re being honest.”

 

“…But he’s alright now,” Natasha said, more statement than question, but open-ended enough to be corrected. She’d seen a lot of humans survive things a monster wouldn’t have and be alright.

 

“He’s… alive,” she replied, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Natasha’s statement. “When he was attacked in Afghanistan, he was hit with shrapnel from a bomb. Mostly centered in his chest.”

 

Natasha unconsciously covered her own chest, schooling her face into a blank mask to hide her fear. “That’s where all your important bits are.”

 

Pepper stared at her for a moment, then decided not to try and understand monsters. “…Yes,” she agreed instead. “Especially the heart.”

 

“Something’s wrong with Tony’s heart?” Steve asked quickly, alarmed. Even monsters could understand that without a heart, a human had no chance.

 

“Yes,” she said softly, understanding, but also worried herself. “It—you need to understand. He should have died. It’s a miracle that he’s here. But that miracle cost him.”

 

Steve squirmed, tail writhing anxiously. “Is that why he was throwing up?”

 

“He was throwing up because he’d been eating a handful of rice for a meal and decided he was okay suddenly transitioning to an entire goddamn cheeseburger,” Pepper snapped, then sighed and closed her eyes, visibly trying to relax. “…I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

 

“It’s okay. We know Tony has poor decision-making skills,” Natasha offered.

 

Pepper sighed again, managing a small smile of gratitude for the understanding. “Thanks.” Then her smile faded and she looked back up at them. “No, Steve. He had an electromagnet in his chest keeping shrapnel from tearing his heart into pieces.”

 

“But he’s gonna be okay,” Steve tried again hopefully. He fell silent when Pepper just stared at him somberly and shook her head, feeling confused and helpless. Finally, he managed an inarticulate, “…But… why?”

 

Pepper took a deep, bracing breath. “Steve, the shrapnel is in his chest. It should have killed him on his third day in Afghanistan. We don’t… Humans don’t have a way to remove the shrapnel. Not without killing him anyway.”

 

“…What the _fuck!_ ” Steve snarled, jerking away from her as if she’d physically struck him. “What good is all your human medicine if it doesn’t work when it really matters?!”

 

“Steve,” Pepper began, but he slithered out of the bathroom with a snarl, not wanting to hear it, so fast that his scales scraped and scuffed the tile floor. She stared after him helplessly. “…Does he think that I don’t wish there was a way to help Tony?” she asked, too shocked to be really hurt.

 

Natasha reached out to put one of her hands on the human’s shoulder, then thought better of it. Her prickly hairs irritated Pepper’s sensitive skin. She didn’t need that on top of worrying about Tony. “I understand, Ms. Potts,” she soothed, because she did, mostly. “But Steve… Steve and Bucky are always going to be more invested, no matter how much we might argue about it. They can remember when Tony was just a baby.” She paused, considering, before quietly adding, “I think sometimes they believe he’s still that helpless.”

 

Pepper tilted her head thoughtfully, taking the information in, before she smiled a little—a weak thing, but enough that Natasha relaxed. “I do not believe for a minute that Tony was ever helpless, even as a baby,” she said, amusement coloring her words.

 

Natasha smiled. “Bucky says that Tony nearly tore his ear off when he didn’t want to go to sleep for the night.”

 

Pepper huffed out a tired laugh, lifting a hand to rub at her eyes, push her hair back behind her ear. “That sounds about right, honestly.”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Broth,” Bucky said, trotting into the den, and then paused when he saw Clint rocking back and forth on the back of the couch, not making any move to let Tony go. “…He needs something in his stomach, Clint.”

 

“You can’t have him,” Clint snarled.

 

Bucky was about to snarl back, but then he noticed that Clint’s words had lacked his usual snarky bite. He approached the other monster carefully, because he was skittish even on his best days. “Clint. Steve said he vomited. He needs something in his stomach.”

 

Clint was still and silent for a moment before he drew his wings down just enough to expose Tony’s head, tucked safely beneath his chin. It was obviously a concession for him. “You can’t have him.”

 

“Clint, what the—” Bucky began angrily, then paused when he noticed Clint carefully shifting his wings so the light from the thing in Tony’s chest didn’t emit so brightly against his feathers. “…This is about the blue light, isn’t it,” he said gently.

 

Clint was quiet for a moment before snarling a defensive, “ _You can’t have him._ ”

 

“Clint.”

 

“They can’t take him back!”

 

Bucky closed his mouth, biting back the retort he’d had ready in face of Clint’s obvious fear and distress. “…Clint, do you think that’s a tracking device on his chest?”

 

Clint started rocking back and forth again, silent. Probably too afraid to say yes, but too stubborn to lie and say no.

 

“It’s not,” Bucky told him gently, taking a step closer. “Steve told me it’s not. And he got the information from Ms. Potts. You know Ms. Potts doesn’t have the patience to lie, not to us.”

 

Clint shifted his grip on the human, loosening a little, feathers pulling back a tiny bit further. “…The what is it?” he asked, lost.

 

“It’s a… magnet?” Bucky frowned, unsure how to explain it and make it sound safe when he didn’t truly understand himself. He decided to just rip the band aid off, explaining, “It… keeps shrapnel from a bomb from killing him.”

 

Clint unwrapped one wing long enough to carefully run his taloned fingers through Tony’s hair. “So they can’t find him?”

 

“No, Clint,” Bucky assured softly. “And even if they could, we’re here, aren’t we? We won’t let them take Tony again. We’ll kill them all if they come after him again.”

 

Anything further they would have said was interrupted by Tony, who happily murmured, “Petting me,” and leaned into Clint’s hand. He nuzzled under Clint’s chin again, and seemed to sink deeper into his feathers. “Nice.”

 

Bucky stepped closer, putting a hand on Clint’s shoulder to stop his rocking. “Tony, honey? I made some broth for you. You wanna drink some?”

 

Tony was silent for a moment, thinking, then extracted his hand from Clint’s feathers just far enough to close his fingers around the mug. He paused with the rim of the mug pressed to his chin until Clint raised his wings again and hid him from view.

 

Bucky wanted to smile when the empty mug was thrust out of the sea of purple feathers, but then he remembered the light in Tony’s chest, the way Clint had been protecting him and fearing that someone would track Tony down. Clint sometimes got like this, on edge, and they could never tell what exactly triggered it sometimes, but clutching Tony in the safety of his wings always seemed to calm him down eventually. He didn’t know how much more stress about Tony that Clint could take.

 

He glanced up as Hulk lumbered into the room, tensing up a little when the giant monster reached out both hands toward Clint. He relaxed again when Hulk simply scooped Clint and Tony up in his hands like they were a delicate flower, tail wagging at the obvious affection between them.

 

“Hulk worried,” Hulk said, stroking down Clint’s back with one broad thumb. “Glad you’re home.”

 

Tony’s head poked up out of Clint’s wings again. “I’m glad I’m home too, Hulk.”

 

Hulk’s lips quirked upward into a small smile. “Troublemaker.”

 

“That’s me,” Tony said tiredly, amusement curling the corners of his lips. “…’m sorry.”

 

“Sleep,” Hulk ordered, so gently that it was almost jarring in and of itself.

 

Tony made a small noise of agreement and ducked back under Clint’s wings.

 

Clint shuffled his grip on Tony so it was still gentle but also firm so he wouldn’t drop him. He hopped up one of Hulk’s arms to perch on his shoulder. “This is mine now. I live here.”

 

Hulk rolled his eyes with a fond huff.

 

“Surprised Loki isn’t in here gloating about how he helped save Tony,” Bucky said after a minute, looking around for the other monster. It truly was out of his character not to gloat, and he _had_ been worried about Tony, no matter how well he’d hidden it.

 

Clint frowned, rubbing his cheek over the top of Tony’s head. “He saw the light and freaked the fuck out. Well, as much as a guy like him does. He beat it real quick. …’s kinda why I thought… I mean…”

 

Bucky tilted his head, understanding now. “That the light might be something to track him with?”

 

“…Yeah.” Clint adjusted his grip on the boy. “Like I knew he was fast because deer are, but… man, he barely cleared the door, he leapt so far.”

 

“Weird,” Bucky mumbled. But Loki was usually weird anyway.

 

Hulk grunted and sat down, much more carefully than he usually did so as not to jostle Clint and Tony. “Puny monster.”

 

“…You are literally the only person who thinks that but okay,” Bucky told him, amused, and laughed when Hulk grinned back at him.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Natasha raised her eyebrows when she found Loki huddled in the library. “Surprised you’re not gloating about helping to save Tony.”

 

“That—” Loki began, then stopped, deciding to find better words than what had about to come out of his mouth. “…That was not natural.”

 

She tilted her head, frowning at him. “…What?”

 

“Having—having an entire _cylinder_ of flesh missing.” Loki put a hand over his chest, pale and wan at the thought. “Human hearts are… are delicate. The magic in them in fragile. I cannot believe—they should have just _let him die_.”

 

Natasha disagreed, but she understood where Loki was coming from, mostly. Humans were quite ill-suited to injury. They were squishy, and didn’t have leathery skin or scales to protect them. Many times Natasha had come upon dying soldiers and put them out of their misery before the cold or wildlife got to them. She even felt sorry for them, sometimes, but often help was too far away to get to them in time. She knew the mercy of putting something out of its misery.

 

“Tony has shown a worrying propensity to live if only to spite people,” Natasha explained after a moment. Perhaps it would help Loki to know that. “And I doubt that will ever change. Humans are very resistant to change at their cores.”

 

“Horrifying,” Loki said immediately. “Disgusting. I may vomit.”

 

Natasha fought not to smile, delighted. “You like him!”

 

Loki frowned at her, unimpressed. “I am definitely going to vomit.”

 

Natasha stopped fighting it anymore, grinning under the other monster’s glare. “You _like_ him.” And she was starting to see that he liked the other monsters, too, and that he hated it. This was the best day ever.

 

Loki scowled at her, offended. “I am going to vomit on _you_.”

 

Natasha let out a short bark of laughter. “You think Tony hasn’t already done that? Whatever you vomit on me will never be as bad as beer and chili-cheese dogs.”

 

Loki actually looked a little green at hearing that. Good. Natasha hadn’t been able to get the smell off her for days.


	11. Chapter 11

Thor arrived, all shimmering golden fur and giant paws and static so powerful that it made his mane stand on end. He took up the entire entryway, towering over the doorways and knocking paintings off of the walls.

 

The lights flickered on and off. JARVIS frantically tried to inform Tony but he kept cutting out, and making little ‘fzzt-fzzt’ noises instead of words—and for an AI that claimed he did not have emotions, what he did manage to say sounded frightened. Dum-E, U, and Butterfingers began squealing hysterically in terror, zipping up and down the length of the workshop, knocking things from tables and shelves so much in their blind fear that Steve caught Tony around the waist and slithered up onto a table, holding him above the fray.

 

Loki kicked Thor with more franticness than he’d ever shown before, even when trying to contain Hulk’s rage. “Stop this immediately! You are frightening The Voice, Jarvis!”

 

“My apologies,” Thor said remorsefully, even as the the timbre of his voice caused an antique clock to fall from the wall and break into pieces on the floor.

 

Loki made a frustrated noise and glared at him. “Thor!”

 

Thor curled his legs in and under, slowly beginning to shrink to a more suitable size for the mansion, Old magic sparkling around him like a cape with the change. When he stood again, he was tall and broad and built like a tank engine, top half human, bottom half still leonine, and fur shimmering like his thick man of long golden hair. He was not as large as Hulk, but his power was still there, glowing and concentrated, so much so that Hulk sized him up but visibly decided not to engage.

 

“Brother!” Thor called joyfully, grabbing the paler monster up in a hug that he immediately squawked and tried to struggle out of.

 

Natasha and Hulk shared a long, disbelieving look before wordlessly returning their attention back to the two Old monsters.

 

Steve and Tony stumbled up from the lab, looking harried. Tony was trying to tame his hair, which was sticking straight up. “What the fuck?!”

 

“Ah! Anthony!” Thor boomed, delighted, and finally released Loki to stride toward the human instead.

 

Loki skittered on his hooves, disoriented, limbs wheeling wildly to gain his balance again. Hulk took pity on him and caught him before he could fall, one broad hand helping the smaller monster stand straight until he got his bearings.

 

“Oh no,” Tony said, voice small, as Thor quickly approached him. He squeezed his eyes shut as the monster drew him up into a hug. He stiffened, waiting for pain, because he was so delicate now and monsters were so strong—but it never came. He began to relax, happily surprised.

 

Thor was gentle with him, as if knowing how sensitive he was, how easy it was to hurt him now with the reactor. That didn’t make his hug any less tight or protective. Tony hesitated before lifting his arms from protecting his chest to instead wrap them around Thor’s still vaguely fuzzy shoulders. He loved hugs, and Thor was turning out to be an incredibly good hugger.

 

“I am glad to see you well, Anthony!” Thor said, then paused, gently amending, “…As well as you may be.”

 

“Well, it was all thanks to you,” Tony admitted as he was set down.

 

Thor laughed in amusement and clapped him on the shoulder. “Nay, it is truly your human—oh dear, Anthony, I do apologize,” he added as he hurriedly helped the human off of the ground. “I am so unused to this form. Mayhaps I will grow used to it! Now that I may see my brother here—”

 

“You are not invited,” Loki tried to cut in scathingly, still clutching Hulk’s hand as his legs continued to tremor with aftershocks from his brother’s power. It was kind of hard to take him seriously like that, though, when he was about to keel over.

 

“You’re Loki’s brother?” Steve asked, and then gave Thor a long once over before repeating in disbelief, “ _You’re_ Loki’s brother?”

 

“I was a foundling,” Loki muttered with a petulant sniff.

 

Thor turned to frown at him, looking somewhat hurt. “Yes, but we have always loved you like our own. I do not understand why you left us, brother.”

 

Loki rolled his eyes and ‘tsk’ed, unmoved. “If you do not understand, I cannot explain it.”

 

“Things are suddenly making so much sense,” Tony whispered quietly, hands on his cheeks, as he glanced back and forth between the two Old monsters. Only siblings could bicker like that. Then he jumped, realizing another bickering pair who should be there with a strange monster encroaching on their territory was nowhere to be found. “Wait, where—where are Bucky and Clint?”

 

Steve frowned, brows furrowing together in growing concern. “Bucky was gonna go see if Clint wanted to go outside, last I checked, but I don’t know if they actually made it—”

 

They all rushed toward the den as one. Perhaps they’d hidden when they realized how powerful Thor was, figuring Loki would handle another Old monster. Otherwise they would have come, just to make sure Tony was safe.

 

They found a trail of feathers leading to the small closet in the den. After another frantic look around the room, a familiar tail was found to be sticking out from under the couch.

 

Tony ran to the closet as Steve went for the couch. “Clint! Clint, are you okay?!” he exclaimed, and barely kept himself from slamming into the door in his haste.

 

“…’m fine,” came Clint’s muttered answer, muffled further by the door.

 

Tony frowned, putting his hands against the wood. “Really? Are you sure?”

 

“ _Yes,_ ” Clint replied sharply.

 

“But how can I be sure unless you show me?” Tony asked, honestly concerned, because Clint was still—still hurting, still anxious and scared. Tony had been back from Afghanistan for two months and Clint still went through extreme bouts of protective anxiety and depression. Clint hurting himself in terror was a real concern.

 

There was a very long pause before the monster let out a frustrated sound, and then the doorknob jiggled. Tony accommodatingly stepped back to allow the door to open. For a long moment, nothing happened, so Tony took a few more steps back in case Clint was feeling cagey and trapped.

 

Clint slid one clawed foot out of the closet, paused, then sighed in angry defeat and squeezed out the rest of the way, staring down at Tony forlornly.

 

Tony stared at him, gaping, hands slowly rising to cover his open mouth in a vain attempt not to be rude.

 

“Don’t laugh,” Clint begged miserably, trying to push his expanded feathers down. “Also help? They won’t—they won’t stay down.”

 

Tony immediately reached out to try and help push Clint’s feathers down, only to let out a startled yelp and yank his hands back when he was zapped by some particularly strong static. “Ow!”

 

Clint turned to glare at Natasha, who had begun laughing at him the moment he’d stepped out. “I said don’t laugh! I look like I flew through a bad lightning storm, just—not as wet. _Fuck_ why did this happen?!” he lamented, embarrassed, and tucked his wings around himself uncomfortably.

 

Tony heard Steve burst out laughing as well and turned, unable to help the startled giggle that escaped him when he saw Bucky, sour-faced and all his fur standing on end. He looked like a giant, angry Pomeranian. “Oh!”

 

“Laugh it up, you asshole,” Bucky snapped angrily, then reached out to graze his finger over Steve’s cheek.

 

Steve yelped and grabbed his cheek, slithering backward and looking at Bucky with pure betrayal. “Oh, come on! It’s funny!” he exclaimed defensively when Bucky continued to scowl at him. “You’d laugh at me if I had fur to do this!”

 

Bucky sneered at him before turning to look up at Thor with another scowl. “Thanks for nothing, buddy.”

 

“I apologize,” Thor repeated, frowning. “It has been so long since I have entered a human dwelling, I had no idea how much had changed—” He looked up at the ceiling, the electric lights that flickered if he focused on them too long. He looked back down at Bucky, frowning. “And I certainly did not expect… so many of you.”

 

“Anthony is fond of monsters,” Loki said snidely from behind him. He sounded like a sulking child. No one was brave enough to point that out. “That is why I sent you after him. What would become of these poor creatures without him?”

 

Natasha turned to face him slowly, face a blank mask. “And just _who_ is a poor creature?” she asked coldly, each of her four eyes focusing with laser-precision on his face.

 

Tony had to cover his mouth again to smother his giggle at how Loki found something else interesting very quickly and had to leave the room.

 

Thor turned to Natasha with a grin, looking delighted. “Ah, I see you have a warrior’s heart!”

 

“I’ll eat him,” Natasha replied. It could have been a joke. It probably wasn’t though.

 

Thor paused a moment, staring at her, before he let out a booming laugh. “You are quite terrifying! I like it!” Then he frowned at her very seriously. “Do not eat Loki. He will make sure to give you indigestion just to spite you.”

 

Natasha awkwardly took a few steps back before managing a small, amused smile back at him.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“It was Stane,” Pepper said softly, setting a thick folder onto the table. She took a deep breath before her face crumpled. She covered it quickly, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “ _It was Stane_.”

 

Tony didn’t want to believe it. He dragged the folder closer and began looking through it, frantic to find something— _anything_ —to tell him that Pepper was wrong, that it was a mistake. Obadiah had been like a father to him when his own father couldn’t be bothered. Obadiah couldn’t possibly have gone behind his back to sell his weapons, to—to send him to his _death_.

 

Thor frowned as Tony began to cry as well, silent tears that dripped down his cheeks as his hands began to tremble. Perhaps—perhaps now was not a good time to bid farewell. He backed out of the kitchen quietly, wincing when he bumped into someone and knocked them over.

 

“Ow what the he—” Bucky began angrily, letting out a yelp when Thor immediately clamped a hand around his muzzle to silence him. He growled and struggled as he was dragged away from the door, clawing at the blond monster’s hand, and snarled when Thor let go of him. “What the actual _fuck_ you _asshole_ —”

 

“Anthony is—” Thor paused, searching for words. He didn’t quite understand what was happening himself, though. “…He has gotten some bad news,” he finally decided on.

 

“Bad? What bad? Like his heart thingy is dying bad or Pepper scolded him for not eating more vegetables bad?” Bucky asked immediately, anger forgotten.

 

Thor tilted his head, searching again, even though he knew the younger monster was getting impatient. That was the trouble with all these younger monsters—they hadn’t had millennia like he had, so they rushed into things. “It appears that the cause of his… problems,” he began after a moment. “Were caused by a man named Stane. And he is distraught over this.”

 

“Oh,” Bucky said in understanding, and then his face fell when it truly sank in. “ _Oh_. Oh _no_.”

 

Thor frowned in concern. “Is this—is this Stane someone close to him?”

 

Bucky turned and grabbed his shoulders, frowning up at him. “He was Tony’s uncle figure. We tried to tell him that he was no good, but… you know humans.”

 

“I really do not, but I believe I understand enough,” Thor said somberly.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“…I’m sorry,” Agent Coulson offered.

 

Tony watched him compile all of the files Pepper had given him, numb.

 

“We appreciate that,” Pepper said with as much sincerity as she could, putting her hands on Tony’s shoulders gently. “Thank you, Agent Coulson.” She gripped Tony’s shoulders tightly when the other man stood. “Let’s walk him to the door, Tony.”

 

Tony stood mechanically, pushed in his chair. He led the way to the door.

 

“Oh,” Agent Coulson said, staring at the ceiling.

 

Tony and Pepper looked up as well. They blanched when they saw the giant cobweb crossing over the ceiling and scrambled to come up with a plausible explanation.

 

“Looks like you have an infestation,” Agent Coulson mused mildly. “You can always call on us for that as well.”

 

“They’re not a bother,” Tony snapped immediately, defensive, then paled when he realized what he’d said.

 

Agent Coulson gave him a bland look. “I never said they were,” he pointed out, before he shrugged the interaction off. “We’ll keep you updated on the process. So far we should have enough to indict him without bail, but I’ll let you know how that goes.”

 

“Thank you, Agent Coulson,” Pepper cut in sharply, because Tony could say anything else.

 

“Have a good evening,” Agent Coulson replied before stepping out the door.

 

They waited, silent, until Agent Coulson’s care passed the gate before Tony turned and bellowed, “NATASHA!”

 

Natasha poked her head in from the den, looking contrite as she ever managed, which was not very much. “I wanted to hear what was happening with Stane so I could tell Clint.”

 

Pepper watched Tony sag like all the fight had been taken out of him. She did not feel the same defeat. “I told you that I’d keep you abreast of the situation.”

 

Natasha grimaced.

 

“They’ve always told me that Obi—that Stane was bad news,” Tony admitted quietly.

 

“Oh, like they’ve never been wrong,” Pepper scoffed, annoyed. “They thought _I_ was bad news.”

 

Tony looked up at her in confusion. “Wait, what?”

 

“You were a different kind,” Natasha began.

 

“No, bad news is bad, no matter which way you spin it,” Pepper cut in immediately. “You thought I was going to hurt Tony or his company, and as much as you say you’re sorry and as much as I may forgive you, I’m not going to forget it. You’re not infallible.”

 

“What?” Tony repeated in disbelief, unable to help feeling a little hurt on his friend’s behalf. “Pepper—Pepper’s a _gift_.”

 

Natasha sighed. “And we know that _now_.”

 

“I think you all need to take a step back and remember that Tony’s a human,” Pepper added coldly. “You can’t just keep him here like some sort of princess in a castle. He’s needed outside this mansion. I understand that Clint has PTSD and anxiety out the whazoo but _please_. Trust me.”

 

She spread her hands helplessly. “You’re Tony’s family and I’m always going to be a little hurt that you didn’t like me at first, but I have nothing but Tony’s best interest at heart—which means I have nothing but _your_ best interests at heart. Stane wanted Tony to move out of here and I made him shut up about it so Tony didn’t have to worry about you. I am on your side.”

 

“We— _I’m_ sorry,” Natasha said honestly, realizing that this was an apology everyone would have to make individually. She stepped further out from behind the wall, frowning, as she looked Pepper up and down. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a human like you before, Pepper.”

 

“And you never will again,” Pepper told her seriously, but there was a smile playing at her lips.

 

“Okay, but—” Tony began, but then Pepper turned and put her finger to his lips, whispering, ‘shhh.’ He blinked as he watched her walk back into the kitchen, then burst out a perplexed, “ _What?!_ ”

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Friend Anthony,” Thor boomed, making the human jump and flail. Clint squawked as he dropped him from the back of the couch, because holding a struggling Tony was not easy. “I must take my leave of you!”

 

“The _hell_ ,” Tony began, rubbing his tailbone, before letting out a yelp as Thor grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him up like he weighed nothing. “Oh!”

 

“Do not tell Loki, but I have another human whom I had to take leave from to rescue you,” Thor whispered conspiratorially, smiling a little.

 

Tony stared up at him, eyes round with surprise. “Really?!”

 

“Yes. Three, actually,” Thor added, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Although Lady Jane was the one who hit me with her car.”

 

Tony gaped, voice barely heard above Clint beginning to cackle with laughter. “ _What_.”

 

“In any case, I must take my leave of you,” Thor repeated, looking down at him fondly. “Please take care of my brother. I know that he is a handful, but… he appears to enjoy your company. He asked me to rescue you, after all.”

 

Tony blinked up at him, frowning. “How _did_ you find me, anyway?”

 

“I rely less on magic than my dear brother,” Thor explained, then tilted his head, frowning. “…I am surprised he did not have a thread of magic wrapped around you. …He will have fixed that error by now,” he added after some thought, looking back down at him. “But as I do not rely on magic, it is of no consequence when I cannot feel lit. Loki intimated to me that no one could find you, and I… Alas, I am foolhardy this way. I took it as the challenge Loki surely expected I would.

 

“It helped that the villagers whispered rumors of your passing through still, when I finally made it there. I am not ashamed of falling for Loki’s scheme,” he decided after a moment. “At least not this time. Loki has so few he calls comrades. He has found a home here. I am glad of this, Anthony.”

 

“I—I’m glad of it too, Thor,” Tony admitted, surprised, because sometimes he wondered. Loki’s attitude was hard to parse even on the best of days, but hearing that… it was nice. “You can come visit whenever you want.”

 

Thor smiled, and it lit up his whole face. “Thank you, Anthony. I will remember your kindness.”

 

“Do you guys even realize how ominous it is when you say shit like that,” Tony complained, and Thor laughed before turning to leave the mansion.

 

He’d learned his lesson. He would change forms outside, well _away_ from the building.


	12. Chapter 12

Stane went to prison. Tony sat at the trial, watching, jaw clenched, as he tried to reconcile his uncle-figure into this cold-blooded, double-dealing man.

 

Then he went home and he cried and cried.

 

“There, there,” Clint said gently, gathering Tony up in his wings. “It’ll be okay.”

 

“It won’t.”

 

“It will.”

 

“It won’t!”

 

Clint gently ran his taloned fingers through Tony’s hair, patiently repeating, “It will. I thought things would never be okay and then this weird kid kept me from dying. So don’t worry—it’ll be okay.”

 

Tony sniffled, hiding his face in Clint’s neck, clutching his feathers in his hands miserably. “’m getting your feathers all wet.”

 

“It’s okay,” Clint said, even though he hated getting his feathers wet. He noticed Natasha was approaching, holding his security blanket, holding it up like she was preparing to catch a wild animal. Frantically, he began, “Don’t—”

 

She threw the blanket anyway. It hit them with a dull thud.

 

“AGH FUCK,” Clint shouted as the weighted blanket through him off-balance, sending him tumbling backward off of the couch’s arm with Tony clutched in his wings.

 

Hulk caught them before they hit the ground though, so it was okay. It was worth it to see Natasha look offended when Hulk stared at her in disbelief.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Stane was found dead today,” Agent Coulson informed him, voice gentle but not pitying.

 

Tony grasped the front of his shirt in his hands, twisting the fabric anxiously as he searched to feel—something. Mostly he just felt numb. Even now, months later, almost a year, he had trouble feeling anything when it came to Obi—to Stane. Mostly his first response was despair. He was afraid that that was maybe all he _could_ feel about it, ever. “Oh?”

 

“Yes,” Agent Coulson said pleasantly. “Frightened to death, actually.”

 

Tony felt cold down to his bones. “That—no. That’s not possible,” he stuttered out immediately, because the monsters were vengeful but they weren’t—weren’t _stupid_ about it.

 

“Well, it was technically a heart attack,” Agent Coulson allowed, tilting his head thoughtfully. “However, his expression when he was found spoke of unexplainable terror.”

 

“Maybe he was realizing what he’d done to me and was sorry,” Tony tried, straightening his shoulders stubbornly.

 

Agent Coulson raised an eyebrow and held up his hand, a dark purple feather as long as his forearm held between his fingers. “This was found in his cell.”

 

Tony gripped his shirt tighter. _Oh_. Oh no. This was just—this was just another bad thing in a long list of bad things and he had no idea how he was going to—to explain this away, to make it plausible. The evidence was right there in _Agent Coulson’s hand_. He had… he had already lost so much. Too much. He couldn’t stand to lose the monsters, too.

 

But Agent Coulson was still holding the feather out to him. Tony blinked at him, wary, before disentangling a hand from his shirt and carefully reaching out, taking the feather from the other man’s hand delicately, as if afraid he might snatch it back.

 

“And here I thought it was only a spider infestation,” Agent Coulson mused with a small smile. “Birds, too.”

 

“They’re not—” _an infestation_ , Tony was going to say angrily, but he swallowed it back down, scowling. Finally, he settled on, “…They keep the pests away.”

 

There was an ominous creak of floorboards down the hall, but no one was there. Tony tightened his grip on his shirt so much the cloth threatened to tear, the vein of the feather in his other hand nearly cutting into his palm.

 

Agent Coulson continued to smile the smile of a man in no danger at all. “Mr. Stark, you should probably be aware that my taser is capable of taking down a monster.”

 

There was a pause, and then a long, angry screech before Steve came bursting out of nowhere, lunging at Agent Coulson, all rippling muscles and shimmering scales and flashing fangs.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony’s hands fluttered over Steve’s body nervously. “Steve, are you okay?”

 

Steve stared up at the ceiling blankly. “…Did I die?”

 

“No,” Agent Coulson said, leaning over him. “Just received a very concentrated electric shock. You should be fine in a moment.”

 

Steve blinked at him slowly. “…When I’m fine, I’m going to sink my fangs into your chest and shoot venom directly into your heart.”

 

Agent Coulson rolled his eyes. “Because that worked out for you so well the first time.”

 

“I’m prepared for the shock now,” Steve insisted, even though he still couldn’t move very well. “I’ll power through.”

 

“Honey, that’s not how bodies work,” Tony told him gently.

 

“Is this how everyone else feels in your lab? No wonder everyone has no problem following the rule to keep out.” Steve stared at the ceiling a moment longer before turning to look at Tony directly. It took a lot of effort to move. “Are you sure I didn’t die for a moment?”

 

“ _Steve,_ ” Tony sighed loudly, rolling his eyes.

 

“You could have, Tony wouldn’t know,” Natasha said from the ceiling, making the brunet let out a yelp of fright, glancing quickly between her and the other human. “Although you’re breathing now so probably not.

 

“Natasha!” Tony exclaimed, exasperated. These monsters, honestly.

 

Agent Coulson frowned thoughtfully. “That is the biggest arachnid monster I’ve ever seen.”

 

“He offered me soup when he was sixteen and I decided not to eat him,” Natasha said.

 

Agent Coulson, who had kept up his mild expression almost the entire time, took a moment to clutch his chest, because _holy shit_.

 

“Really? _Really?_ You’re gonna tell everyone you meet that?” Tony exclaimed, incensed.

 

Natasha shrugged, because his anger was nothing to her. Not about this. “It’s the best explanation of how stupid and guileless you are.”

 

“Pepper _cried_.”

 

“Pepper can’t believe how often you almost died as a kid,” Natasha replied, uncaring. “Of course she cried.”

 

There was the tapping of claws on the floor before Bucky appeared in the doorway. “Hey, what’s going—oh, is this a new friend?” he asked, raising his brows.

 

“ _No,_ ” everyone replied immediately, including Agent Coulson, and then Steve added, “He fucking _tased me_.”

 

“…You probably deserved it,” Bucky reasoned after some thought, making the blond squawk in outrage.

 

Agent Coulson tilted his head as they began to bicker and Tony and Natasha decided to ignore them. “SHIELD has been aware of the abnormal amounts of monster activity around your mansion, but we never would have thought it was from so many monsters.”

 

Tony turned from Natasha and twisted his fingers anxiously. “Well, um, actually—”

 

Clint poked his head out of the living room. “What’s going on? So noisy…”

 

Agent Coulson stared at Tony, stone-faced.

 

“Maybe we should go sit down,” Tony suggested weakly.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Phil pinched the bridge of his nose—it was Phil, now that he knew that Tony had what was basically a home for wayward monsters and that Tony knew that Phil knew that monsters of all classifications existed—and sighed. “You have—you have old monsters here.”

 

“Well, uh, just—just the one, the other just—visits.”

 

“ _Visits_ ,” he repeated in disbelief.

 

Tony fiddled with his cup of coffee, then drew his hands back into his lap awkwardly. “He rescued me in Afghanistan.”

 

Phil paused, digesting the information. “…Well, that answers _that_ question.”

 

“They’re not that bad,” Tony insisted after a moment. “Loki is—he’s definitely worried about his own interests first, but… but he _did_ send his brother to rescue me. So there’s that.”

 

Phil did not want to think about that, so he turned to look at Bruce, who was quietly nursing a cup of tea. “And you’re… You’re Bruce Banner. You’ve been missing for _decades_. We’ve been searching for you.”

 

“I’m more monster than human now,” Bruce explained quietly. “If you want to know where I was, maybe look into a General Ross. He’s probably dead now though.” He looked up suddenly, eyes hard, taking on a green sheen. “But I’m staying here. There’s no place left for me in the world. Everyone I knew is in their nineties or dead. I’m going to outlive everyone I meet. I’m going to outlive—” He cut himself off, swallowed it back, but everyone at the table knew the name he’d meant to say was _Tony_.

 

“Ha,” Tony said weakly, unsure of how he was supposed to react. “I’m not that special. You’ll get over me.”

 

“Hardly,” a voice drawled from the doorway, and everyone jerked toward it.

 

Loki wrinkled his nose when he noticed Phil go for his taser. He stepped into the kitchen slowly, eyes lingering just a second on the arc reactor in Tony’s chest, before he reached out to take Bruce’s cup of tea. His antlers just barely skimmed the light fixtures.

 

Tony glanced at Phil and frowned when he saw the white-knuckled grip he had on his taser. “I don’t think that would do any good against an old monster.”

 

“It wouldn’t,” Loki confirmed pleasantly, taking a sip of tea from Bruce’s mug. He tilted his head thoughtfully as he looked at Phil. “…You reek of a monster as well, Son of Coul.”

 

“It’s just Coulson,” Phil began, then stopped himself, looking very tired. “Jesus Christ.”

 

Tony blinked at him curiously, surprised. “You know a monster?”

 

Phil sighed, leaning his chin on his hand as he thought about how to respond, before he casually asked, “Have you ever heard of the Erinyes?”

 

Everyone at the table stared at him blankly, except for Loki, who did a grand imitation of a spouting whale and spewed tea everywhere, but mostly on himself.

 

“They have also been called Furies,” Phil added, looking amused.

 

“I’ve met a Director Fury,” Tony said slowly, thoughtful. “He was—something.”

 

Loki relaxed minutely.

 

“He’s older than your friend Loki,” Phil said, and Loki immediately tensed back up again. He gave the old monster a long, intense stare. “Do you think for one moment that a creature as old and clever as a Fury would not learn to change to a form that suits it?”

 

Clint’s head swung back and forth between them before he finally opened his mouth. “Is it bigger than Loki, too? I wanna see ‘em fight.”

 

“Clint,” Natasha and Tony sighed, exasperated.

 

“Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!” Clint chanted, bobbing on the back of Bucky’s chair. Bucky swatted at him, but he was mostly smiling.

 

“I will not fight a Fury!” Loki squawked indignantly. He scowled when Clint jeered at him with a sneer. “—Not that I would find it hard to make her rue the day—”

 

“Nobody’s fighting anyone! Oh my God!” Tony exclaimed angrily, throwing his hands up. “Clint!”

 

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Clint continued to chant. Steve soon joined in. “Fight! Fight!”

 

“Oh my God,” Tony hissed, holding his head in his hands.

 

Phil patted his shoulder, unsure of how he was feeling, but understanding how tired Tony must be if he lived with this all the time.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Anthony,” Loki said later that night.

 

Tony rolled his eyes and sighed. “I’ve told Clint that you’re not fighting anyone.”

 

“What? Of course I would never—” Loki cut himself off and took a deep breath, then let it back out of his nose slowly.

 

Sometimes he had to remind himself that Clint was—sick. In the head, sometimes in the heart. It had granted Clint the ability to sense people’s ill intent better than even Loki could, but it had—warped him somehow, made him mean or clingy in turns. He would offer to help with his magic, but Clint didn’t trust him except to roost on his antlers. Tony was probably the only person he trusted completely besides Hulk. Hulk had proved he was quite protective of all the people in the mansion, including Rhodes and Potts.

 

“I came for a different reason,” Loki continued, eyes flicking down to the glowing blue light in his chest before going back up to his face.

 

Tony frowned, self-conscious, and set his tablet aside to cover the reactor with his hands. “I know you don’t like it—”

 

“It’s killing you,” Loki cut in, because he didn’t want to waste time on nonsense everyone already knew—he didn’t keep it a secret that the reactor left him deeply unsettled.

 

Tony’s fingers twitched up toward his neck before his palms pressed back down on the reactor. “I don’t—well.” He’d been drinking the smoothies that JARVIS had suggested, but the dark lines of his veins probably didn’t disappear as quickly as he might have liked, and he’d been searching for a new element, but… it wasn’t working. He wouldn’t have enough time. “Yeah,” he answered quietly instead of arguing. “Nothing is really—working.”

 

“I can help you,” Loki said magnanimously, then paused. “…I can _try_ and help you. Thor’s aid would be required.”

 

Tony smiled sadly down at his lap. “You don’t have to do that, Loki. I know you hate calling on your brother.”

 

Loki tilted his head, mulling over his response. Any way he turned it, the answer would give away too much. But then, the alternative was Tony dying. He didn’t much like the idea of that, either. “I find your presence… good. Humans are very…” He struggled to find better words, then sighed. “They are too bright and loud and selfish. But you are not. You are… You are the _brightest_ , and the _loudest_ , but in the end you have never been selfish.” He gave Tony a long look. “You deserve to live.”

 

“Aw,” Tony said around the lump in his throat. “Loki. That’s sweet.”

 

“Loki is quite compassionate underneath all his frost!” Thor chortled as he came into the room.

 

Loki’s expression immediately soured. “Thor.”

 

“You called for me, brother!” Thor said delightedly. “That is twice in one decade! Why, that is more than you have called on me in a single century sometimes!”

 

Loki decided not to deign Thor with an answer. “If you would allow me to work a little magic,” he offered instead, turning back to Tony.

 

Tony frowned, his hands pressing harder to the reactor. “But I thought you couldn’t. Your magic—it doesn’t work well with technology.”

 

“Loki’s magic does not work particularly well with my hammer, either,” Thor said kindly, holding up a huge hammer with a ridiculously short handle. “But you have proven yourself worthy to me, Anthony. I hope that the Lady Mjolnir has found you equally worthy.”

 

Tony stared at him silently. He didn’t see a lady in the room with them, but it would be just his luck if she was invisible or too small for his pathetic human eyes to see.

 

“I need your—heart,” Loki said after a moment. He held his hands out.

 

Tony politely did not point out that the old monster’s fingers were trembling. Instead, he carefully twisted the arc reactor unlocked, and pulled it from his chest. He flinched when he saw how burned out the core was. He’d need to—put a new one in soon. God, he felt so sick at just the thought. “Don’t—don’t pull out the cord.”

 

Loki took a deep breath before carefully taking the reactor into his hands. Green sparks flickered over his fingers, but he carefully kept the magic from the metal. “Thor.”

 

“Aye,” Thor said, coming to stand beside him, and lifted the hammer over his head.

 

Tony’s eyes flicked from the hammer back to the reactor in Loki’s hands. Oh God. He wasn’t going to _crush_ it, was he?! “Um, I don’t think—”

 

There was a crash of thunder, and Tony jumped. Then a flash of lightning, coming from—the hammer?! Oh God he was going to die.

 

“She has deemed him worthy,” Thor informed them proudly. “She allows your magic, Loki.”

 

Loki nodded, and the magic sparking over his fingers leapt onto the reactor.

 

Tony couldn’t help jerking in surprise, because it didn’t hurt but it didn’t feel particularly _good_ either. “Ugh-!” Lightning flashed from the hammer again, and Tony writhed, terrified, hands reaching out for the reactor to take it back, protect it from them—

 

Loki shoved the reactor back into his hands, and he clutched at it, scrambling to put it back into his chest, get it _away_ from them. It clicked home, locking into place, and he lunged across the couch away from them. Not that it mattered—Loki had skittered away, arms wrapped around his waist tightly, shivering. Thor had taken a large step back, looking no worse for wear, but giving him much needed space.

 

“…What did you do,” Tony asked shakily, covering the reactor with his hands again. “What—what did you do?”

 

“Mjolnir has found you worthy,” Thor repeated. “She has given you a piece of herself to use in your…” He paused, then waved at the reactor in the brunet’s chest. “Loki has used his magic to make it compatible with your device.”

 

“A piece of herself,” Tony repeated blankly. “What does that even mean? …Are you talking about your fucking hammer?!”

 

Thor frowned at him severely, somewhat offended. “Mjolnir is not just a hammer, Anthony.”

 

“Oh, uh, I apologize, Lady Mjolnir.” He turned and looked up at Thor, bewildered. “What is. What is the protocol. When you’re talking to a hammer.”

 

“To a star,” Thor corrected patiently. “She was forged out of the heart of a dying star.”

 

Tony did not tell him that he had no idea how to talk to a star either. “—Wait, wait.” He looked down at the reactor, then back up at the two old monsters, eyes flicking between them frantically. “You said—you said she gave me a piece of herself—”

 

“She has deemed you worthy,” Loki said, tossing his hair over his shoulder and acting as if he did not just use the most advanced magic he’d done in centuries. “So she gave up some of her ore to replace your… pledium.” He opened his free hand, showing the burnt remains of the palladium core. He dropped it on the coffee table. “Mjolnir’s ore will last thousands of human lifetimes.”

 

Tony smiled down at his reactor sadly. “Good think I’ll only need it for one.”

 

Thor clapped a hand on his shoulder. “But a good long one! …Oh, Anthony, I’m sorry—”

 

“It’s fine,” Tony wheezed from the floor. Maybe one day he would be prepared for Thor’s strength.

 

Loki laughed. It physically pained him that Thor was the cause.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“You smell like coconut,” Steve mumbled, rubbing his cheek over Tony’s chest.

 

Tony paused, his fingers stilling in Steve’s hair. “Yeah?”

 

“Mm.” Steve nuzzled his nose against the casing of the reactor. “It’s nice.” He turned as Bucky padded into the room, picking his teeth with one of Clint’s feathers. “Hey, Bucky, Tony smells like coconut now.”

 

Bucky paused, letting the feather drop to the floor. “Coconut?”

 

“From the thingy,” Steve explained, knocking lightly on the reactor.

 

Bucky came over and shoved his cold nose against Tony’s chest, making him yelp and squirm to try and escape it. “Hey, it does! Good job, thingy. This is much better than burnt popcorn.”

 

Tony wondered if anyone besides Natasha and Bruce would ever remember what the reactor was actually called. He was glad he hadn’t told them that it was failing, though. He shuddered to think of all the mothering that would have resulted in. It was a wonder he’d hidden the poisoning for so long.

 

Bucky paused in his snuffling, looking up at him in concern. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

 

“…Yeah,” Ton replied after a moment, moving one hand from Steve’s head onto Bucky’s to draw him back down to his chest.

 

 _Thousands of human lifetimes,_ Loki had said.

 

Tony closed his eyes and just enjoyed Steve’s kisses around the reactor and Bucky’s little licks across his collarbone. It only needed to last him one.


	13. Chapter 13

“I’m too old for this kidnapping bullshit,” Tony whispered, shivering, and tugged the collar of his shirt tighter around his neck in a futile attempt to block out the freezing rain. Forty-five years old and he was still being carted around like so much luggage. God.

 

He didn’t think about how glad he was that there was no sand, no heat, no bright lights in the dark. He didn’t think about how glad he was to break out of a building instead of a cave. He didn’t think about how no one had come for him, and what that meant for the monsters who had been screaming in obvious agony when he’d been taken.

 

The forest was cold, and as much as the conifers blocked the direct onslaught of rain, they did little to protect Tony from the rain dripping off the needles and onto him. He tucked himself into the lee of a larger tree, taking a few deep breaths, but it hurt—every gasp hurt. The metal casing was cold in his chest, making the skin around it burn and then spread out into a dull, cold ache. His fingers were beginning to go numb.

 

He was going to die out here.

 

Tony swallowed thickly before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to start walking again. He would _not_ die out here. The monsters—the monsters had been hurt. He needed to see if they were alright.

 

It felt like he’d been stumbling along for hours, but it was probably only minutes when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Tony tucked himself in the lee of another tree, peering up at the branches hopefully. Perhaps it was Natasha, or Clint.

 

“Natasha?” Tony called, weaker than he would have liked. “Clint?”

 

Nothing moved.

 

Tony shifted on his feet, unease slowly creeping through him. He called their names again even though he knew that they would have answered immediately if they were there. He stayed huddled against the tree a little longer before he forced himself to continue. If there was a predator out here, he wasn’t going to stay in one place and be an easy meal.

 

Tony flinched as thunder clapped. His feet hesitated when he though he saw a large, dark figure in the trees with the following lightning. “…Clint?” he asked hopefully.

 

Nothing moved.

 

The unease was growing. Tony hunched his shoulders and continued to stumble his way through the trees. He could swear that each time lightning flashed, that same figure was nearby, following him, but every time he looked, it was just a mass of branches.

 

Tony let out a wounded noise as he tripped over a root and fell to his knees, scraping his palms up and getting his pants wet from hem to knee. “ _Ow_.” He took a moment to press his forehead to the ground, trying to breathe—took a moment to feel sorry for himself and wish he was safe at home.

 

He had to get up though. The monsters had been in—been in so much _pain_ when he’d been taken, the tear gas that had choked them working so much better on their sensitive noses. If they hadn’t come for him, they were still hurt. He needed to go to them, needed to protect them.

 

Lightning flashed. This time, the mass of braches was replaced by a hulking figure with dark red feathers, peering up at him with dark, angry eyes.

 

Steve and Bucky had always insisted that their scents would stop any monster from attacking him, and Loki had very confidently told him no monster wanted to mess with an old monster so he would be safe anyway.

 

Clint, Bruce, and Natasha had always insisted to Tony that if he ever saw an unknown monster, he _run_.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“I’m sorry,” the monster said, choked up, as it patted uselessly at the scratches along Tony’s back. “I was just so _hungry_.”

 

Tony curled into a ball, shivering, wrapping his arms around himself so the tips of his fingers just barely skimmed along the edges of the gashes from the monster’s talons. “’s okay.”

 

“It’s _not_ ,” the monster insisted.

 

“Okay, it’s not,” Tony admitted. “But at least—at least you’re blocking out the rain.”

 

The monster raised its wings higher, rounding them so the water dripping from its feathers wouldn’t drip down onto him. “I hurt you,” it said tearfully.

 

“I was kinda already hurt,” Tony admitted, mostly to himself. “Listen, I gotta—I gotta get home.”

 

“You gotta get help,” the monster insisted instead.

 

Tony sighed. “I’ll get help,” he promised. “But I gotta get home first, check on my—my friends. Do you know where we are?”

 

The monster turned its head before looking back at him. “In the forest.”

 

Tony sighed, slumping a little. Sometimes he really hated monsters.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“Please call my assistant and let her know that I’m alive,” Tony requested of the owner of the cabin he’d stumbled into.

 

“How about I call you an ambulance first,” the guy said, glancing down at the blood dripping onto the floor.

 

Tony blinked slowly. “Will they come out here? You live in the middle of nowhere.”

 

“This is a rental on a popular hiking trail,” the guy said after a startled pause. “For vacations. There’s actually a hospital really close by.”

 

Tony thought about that for a moment before he said, “I think I’m in shock? I’m sorry about your floor.”

 

“Oh, it’s not a problem, don’t worry,” the guy said. He sounded sincere. “I’ll get you a towel and call an ambulance.”

 

“Okay.” Tony watched him go, then turned to look at the backpack he’d kicked when he’d stumbled inside. A bag of granola bars had fallen out of it. He grabbed it and threw it outside. “Food.”

 

The guy stared at him, towel in hand. “…What the fuck, man.”

 

“I will buy you a granola company,” Tony promised.

 

“Just… here, take this towel…”

 

After Tony was taken to the hospital, the hiker went out to look for his bag of granola bars. All he found was a torn plastic bag and empty rappers.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony felt his skin prickle with gooseflesh but did not open his eyes. “We’re in Vermont, by the way.”

 

The monster curled its talons into the wall beneath the window. “What’s a Vermont?”

 

“You monsters are all useless to me,” Tony sighed. He pointed at his tray. “I saved my mashed potatoes for you. Thanks for not eating me.”

 

“You’re welcome," the monster said, reaching out with its foot to pull the cart over to it. It picked up the bowl, using its fingers to scoop the potatoes into its mouth. “It was kind of hard to do it anyway once I smelled the Old magic on you.”

 

“Yeah, Loki said that would happen.” Tony took a deep breath before he turned his head, peeling his eyes open to finally take in the monster’s appearance in some way other than ‘hulking black blob in the trees.’

 

The monster was large, but not nearly as big as Clint. Its feathers were dark red instead of purple, too, silver starting at the shaft and running down the vein and darkening to red along the barb. It had dark skin with equally dark eyes, a strong jaw. Its white talons curled and uncurled into the wall anxiously. That would probably be hard to explain.

 

Tony peered up at it for a very long time before he asked, “Are you male or female?”

 

The monster paused. “…Does it matter?”

 

“I guess not,” Tony said after a moment.

 

“…I suppose I’m male,” the monster said thoughtfully. “If we were to put a label on it.”

 

“We don’t have to put a label on it,” Tony told him. “I was just wondering. Kinda makes me uncomfortable to refer to you as an ‘it.’”

 

“Oh,” the monster said. “I guess that makes sense.” He stared at Tony, tilting his head, and looking much more like a bird than a monster in that moment. “You should rest.”

 

“Can’t,” Tony admitted softly. “I don’t know how my friends are. They were—they were in so much pain when I was taken. Pepper said they’re being taken care of, but I don’t—I don’t know what that means.”

 

The monster crept closer into the room, curling his feet around the frame of Tony’s hospital bed and looming over him. “Were they hunters?”

 

Tony stared up at him, brows furrowing together in confusion. With a frown, he asked, “Who?”

 

“The ones who hurt your friends.”

 

“Oh. No, they were after me. My friends were trying to protect me,” Tony explained. “I’m—sort of a big deal with other humans. I get kidnapped ‘worryingly often’ according to my friend Rhodey. Anyway, my friends—they’re really more like family, and since I’m so squishy and prone to dying…” he trailed off, letting that hang there.

 

The monster tilted his head again. “…I have been acquainted with you for less than a day, and I agree with them—you’re much more prone to dying than most humans.”

 

“Hey,” Tony said weakly. “That’s—that’s not my fault.”

 

“I never said it was,” the monster replied.

 

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it again. Well, that… that _was_ true. The monster had only been stating a (sadly true) fact.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Jim helped him into the mansion. “I appreciate this, Rhodey.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Jim said, glancing to the side. “I’m getting used to dragging your dumb ass around.”

 

“It wasn’t my fault,” Tony insisted.

 

Jim rolled his eyes. “I know it isn’t. But man, I could use some rest. A break. Try not to get kidnapped for, like, six months.”

 

Tony huffed out a half-hearted laugh. “Okay. I’ll try.”

 

“Good enough for me,” Jim said, trying to sound upbeat, and almost managed it until he noticed Tony looking around the entryway. “Tones… listen.”

 

“They’re dead,” Tony said. “And it’s my fault.”

 

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, TONY.” Jim had to fight the urge to shake him. “Oh my God, they’re not dead, why would you think that—”

 

Tony frowned up at him. “If they were alive, they would have met me at the door. At least, Steve would—”

 

“Pepper’s watching them and they’re terrified of her.”

 

“Oh,” Tony said. That made sense. “Never mind.”

 

“You just gave me a heart attack and I hate you,” Jim informed him snidely. “Don’t get kidnapped for an entire _year_.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“For Pete’s sake, Tony.”

 

“’m sorry.”

 

Jim gave him a light squeeze with the arm around his shoulders. “You wanna go see ‘em?”

 

Tony nodded shyly. “Yes, please.”

 

Apparently they were keeping the monsters in the den, since it was the only room large enough to fit everyone and it was closest to the door when Tony would get home. To Tony’s surprise, Phil was there too, carefully applying a cream over Natasha’s throat and chest.

 

Steve and Bucky were sprawled on the carpet. Clint was clutching the back of the couch hard enough that he’d punctured it terribly, and Natasha was sitting on her curled-under legs because she was always more comfortable in a sitting position. Hulk looked mostly unaffected by the tear gas but was still sitting against the wall, one big hand rubbing up and down Loki’s back soothingly as Loki gritted his teeth against the pain and trembled on Hulk’s lap.

 

Each of the monsters had wet washcloths over their eyes, and Bucky had another wet washcloth wrapped around his nose and mouth, likely to try and ease the pain from the tear gas. It must have been awful for Bucky—he had the most sensitive nose out of all of them.

 

“Oh,” Tony couldn’t help but gasp, voice cracking.

 

“They’ll be fine with time,” Phil hurried to say, even though he didn’t look away from applying the cream to Natasha’s skin. “Luckily it was just tear gas.”

 

Tony stumbled over to Bucky and Steve, dropping to his knees beside the lupine monster and carefully taking Bucky’s hand to hold it between his own. “Oh no.”

 

Bucky twisted his head, knocking the washcloth off his eyes, and Tony flinched when he saw how red and swollen they were, letting out a constant discharge from each corner. Tony clenched Bucky’s hand tighter even as the monster jerked his head toward Clint.

 

“Gotta—” Steve rasped, reaching out to clutch the back of his shirt. “Gotta help Clint, Tony. He hasn’t let—let Pepper or Phil touch him.”

 

The last thing he wanted to do was leave Bucky’s side, especially because it looked like each breath pained him, but if Bucky was hurting this badly _with_ treatment… he could only imagine how much pain Clint was in. So Jim helped him to his feet, and he groaned quietly as the stitches in his back pulled with the motion, before he carefully approached the avian monster.

 

“Clint,” Tony said gently. “Clint, I’m home.”

 

Clint shuddered but didn’t reply.

 

Tony frowned. “Clint? Clint, it’s—it’s okay—” He reached out to touch one of Clint’s wings, but the monster flinched from his hands. “Clint!”

 

Clint let out a screech, talons sinking deeper into the couch. Jim tugged Tony away so he wasn’t hit by his wings as he flapped with irritation before covering himself again. It hurt. Tony was certain at least one of the stitches had ripped. He choked back a keen of pain.

 

“There—” Pepper started uncertainly. “Tony, there’s a—another monster at the window?”

 

Tony turned to look, perplexed, but then he relaxed when he saw the familiar red and silver feathers. “That’s Sam. He was in the forest I was being held in.”

 

“You really do just collect these guys, don’t you,” Phil deadpanned, even though he was secretly a little impressed.

 

“Well—yeah.” Tony limped over to open the window. “Hi, Sam.”

 

“Hi.” Sam peered into the den, frowning. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. That’s a lot of friends.” He flapped his wings idly. “I can really stay here? They won’t be mad?”

 

“I mean. Natasha might eat you,” Tony allowed. “But she’d warn you first.”

 

Sam appeared to consider this before he nodded decisively. “I’m too tired of being alone to care.”

 

“Aw, Sam.” Tony stepped away to allow him to step inside. “I have plenty of rooms so it shouldn’t be a problem anyway.”

 

Sam paused inside the room, staring at the hulking purple monster on the couch, then let out a wounded noise and hopped over to him.

 

“Sam, no!” Tony cried, because if Clint was willing to lash out at him, he’d definitely lash out at a stranger.

 

Sam ignored him, using one large flap of wings to leap onto the couch and nudge up against Clint. Clint let out an angry screech and slapped him with his wing, but Sam was not deterred, instead ducking under the wing to press up against his body.

 

Clint screeched again, this time terrified, and tried to struggle away, but his talons were caught in the fabric of the couch. “GET OFF ME!”

 

Sam hunkered down stubbornly, pressing up against Clint’s side. It was almost funny, how small he looked up against Clint, obviously built more for speed rather than brute strength. Except it wasn’t funny because Clint could rip Sam to pieces without breaking a sweat.

 

“Sam!” Tony exclaimed again, trying to rush over, but Jim caught him around the chest and dragged him back. “Sam, be careful!”

 

“You’re sad,” Sam told Clint, curling closer to him, and pressed his face to the other monster’s shoulder. “I’m here now, so you don’t have to be sad anymore.”

 

Clint flinched, and let out another screech, but he slowly— _very_ slowly—began to settle, trying to push Sam away and pull him closer in turn. It took him almost twenty minutes to settle to a point that everyone else relaxed.

 

“You weren’t meant to be alone,” Sam said, cuddling up against him. “But I’m here now.”

 

Clint flinched, then grunted and turned his head away petulantly. “Whatever.”

 

“What’s wrong with your face?” Sam asked guilelessly.

 

“Oh my God I hate you!” Clint snapped, struggling to get his talons free of the couch.

 

Tony patted Jim’s arm so he’d let go. “I think it’s okay now.”

 

Jim let out a long breath and released him. “Be careful, man.”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

Pepper held out a bucket with a clean washcloth on it. “Here.”

 

“Thanks.” Tony approached the pair of monsters and held up the bucket, even though he was pretty sure that Clint couldn’t see it. “Clint? Can I wash your face?”

 

“You probably should, it’s gross,” Sam supplied, and yelped when Clint slapped him off the couch. “Ow!”

 

“Be nice to Sam, he saved my ass!” Tony exclaimed. “…Mostly.”

 

“All I did was carry you to that cabin and then you threw a bag in my face,” Sam pointed out, voice going plaintive at the bag thing.

 

Tony was unmoved. “It was food.”

 

“And I appreciate this but you literally threw it into my face.”

 

Jim laughed before Tony could snap out a witty retort. “Yeah, that sounds like Tony.”

 

Sam clambered back onto the couch and leaned against Clint. “That frightens me more than it helps.”

 

“Sounds like Tony, too,” Jim added, and laughed again when Tony turned and threatened to throw the bucket of water at him, holding his hands up placatingly.

 

Tony glared at him a moment longer before turning back to Clint. “I’m gonna wash your face, okay?”

 

“Didn’t get me that bad,” Clint muttered mulishly.

 

Tony didn’t doubt that. Clint had probably hidden his face as soon as he saw Bucky crumple to the ground. Still, he gently washed Clint’s face, and once he’d done that, he carefully dabbed at his eyes. “’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

 

“Tony,” Natasha croaked, and it sounded like it pained her. “Come here.

 

Tony continued to dab at Clint’s eyes until the monster hissed and covered his head with his wings again. Tony turned to Jim and Pepper hopefully, but they were suddenly very interested in changing the washcloths over Steve and Bucky’s eyes. Sighing, he trudged over to Natasha and peered up at her through his lashes, realizing too late that puppy eyes wouldn’t work because she couldn’t fucking see him.

 

Natasha reached out to him with all four hands, patting along his arms until her bottom pair held his shoulders, and then her top pair cupped his cheeks. “Tony.”

 

Tony blinked up at her. “Yes?”

 

Natasha’s grip on his face got tighter, the way it always did when she was threatening him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“But,” Tony began immediately.

 

Natasha gave him a quick shake. “It _wasn’t your fault_.”

 

“But—”

 

“If you say it was your fault, I will wrap you in silk and use you as a piñata.”

 

Tony stared at her for a long, long time before he finally, weakly answered, “Okay.”

 

“A piñata,” Natasha promised, and then delicately patted his cheek. “You should rest.”

 

“That’s what I told him!” Sam crowed, ruffling his feathers proudly.

 

Natasha patted Tony’s cheek again. “I think we’ll get along well, Sam.”

 

Jim wrapped his arm around Tony’s shoulders again. “Come on, man. Let’s get you to bed.”

 

“But—” Tony tried to insist again with a frown.

 

“Sleep in a bed, Tony,” Pepper ordered sternly, but not unkindly. “You’ve got a hundred and seven stitches in your back.”

 

Sam curled in on himself awkwardly.

 

Tony opened his mouth to argue, then sighed, shoulders falling. He really was very tired, and too old to be sleeping on floors, especially as injured as he was. “Yeah, okay.” He let Jim lead him to the doorway before he managed to ask, “Hey, where’s Thor?” He couldn’t imagine Loki getting hurt and Thor not doing something about it.

 

“Oh, he went after the men who took you,” Phil replied nonchalantly. “He was going to bring you back if he found you, but that’s moot now, I think. I asked him not to kill anyone, but—” He looked at Loki, whose silvery white fur was now dingy and his golden antlers dulled. “…I don’t actually care. Less people to kidnap you.”

 

Tony squinted at him skeptically. “I feel like you shouldn’t have said that because you’re a government agent but I am _so_ tired of getting kidnapped so I actually don’t care.”

 

“You and me both, man,” Jim sighed. “Come on, dummy. It’s sleepy time.”

 

“Did you, a grown man, just say ‘sleepy time?’” Tony asked in mock disbelief.

 

Jim gave him a deadpan stare. “You asked me to stop for apple juice on the way home.”

 

“I hate you,” Tony said as Pepper and Phil burst out into surprised laughter. “I’m disowning you. I’m disinheriting you from my will. I will never speak to you again.”

 

“Well I stopped for it, didn’t I?”

 

“Irrelevant. You’ve betrayed me.”

 

Jim snorted but took one last look at the monsters sprawled through the den. When JARVIS had sent the alarm to him that Tony had been taken, he’d gotten to the mansion in record time. Even drooling, wheezing, and crying, the monsters had attempted to describe the kidnappers and which way they’d fled with Tony.

 

He’d have to stop making fun of them for a while.


	14. Chapter 14

Tony had always been a little unsettled around Director Fury. He’d never been afraid of him, even as a kid, just—wary. He’d always gotten the feeling that he could trust him somehow, though. He’d read up on the Erinyes, the Furies, after Phil had mentioned them, and he could understand why that was. So he trusted Director Fury with his Last Will and Testament.

 

“What the fuck is this?” Fury asked after reading the first ten words.

 

“I need—I need you to take care of the others,” Tony answered haltingly.

 

Fury looked up at him, scowling, somehow managing to put two eyes’ worth of ‘hell no’ into one. “And what makes you think that’s a thing that I’d do for you?”

 

Tony fiddled with his cufflinks before looking back up at him, jaw setting stubbornly. “Because they’ve been wronged, all of them, and that’s what you do, isn’t it? You protect the wronged?”

 

“I have literally never done that,” Fury deadpanned.

 

Tony faltered, but then he doubled down on his stubbornness. “Listen, I have it so Pepper and Rhodey take care of the estate, but they’re gonna die eventually too. The monsters aren’t. I need them to be safe after I’m gone. I’m the reason some of them are even alive right now. They need to know that my home will always be their safe space, even if I’m gone.”

 

Fury’s face gave away nothing, but his eye did flick down to Tony’s chest and then away.

 

Tony gripped his hands together until his knuckles went white and bit his bottom lip. After a moment, he whispered a quiet, desperate, “Please.”

 

Fury was silent for several minutes, until finally he let out a sigh that was more world-weary and tired than any even Clint had uttered after centuries of dealing with humans. “It’ll be handled.”

 

Tony’s shoulders went loose with relief. He looked up at Fury and hoped he conveyed just how grateful he was when he said, “Thank you.”

 

“Get out of my office, Stark,” Fury ordered, and then sighed loudly when the brunet didn’t, glare easing up a bit. “Are you dying? Is that why this is so important right now?”

 

Tony shrugged and turned to look out the window. “I mean… I probably won’t die in the next few years. But I’m not an idiot—I saw those X-rays. No matter what Loki and Thor did, they can’t fix the damage that was already done. Just because the reactor will keep going doesn’t mean my heart and lungs will. They were damaged—are still being damaged, really.” He smiled sadly. “Not to mention the palladium poisoning. I’m lucky my liver’s not completely shot, trying to deal with that. I’m not going to live to a ripe old age.”

 

“Not everyone does,” Fury allowed when he paused. It wasn’t unkind—just a statement of fact. It wasn’t like Tony’s parents had gotten to live to a ripe old age, either.

 

Tony was silent for a long time before whispering, “But maybe it’s better this way. Not even Bruce has shown a sign of aging. I’m going gray and getting wrinkles and arthritis. I don’t want them to see me lying on a bed, unable to move, nothing but skin and bones. I want them to see me like I always have been.”

 

“Fifty is not that old,” Fury pointed out, voice taking on a surprisingly gentle tone.

 

Tony turned to look at him, that sad little smile back on his lips. “No, I don’t expect it would be to you. It’s certainly not to any of them.”

 

Fury leaned back in his chair, looking at him, contemplating. Finally, he said, “You’ve got plenty of time. It probably won’t seem like enough to you, and it definitely won’t be to them, but… you’ve got time to ease them into it.”

 

Tony tilted his head, acknowledging but not really believing him. Sure, the others would probably understand, but Steve and Bucky… every time he tried to bring up his mortality, they wouldn’t let him continue. They’d argue or talk over him or snarl. One time Steve even looked at him and straight up said, “I’m not going to listen to this,” and just slithered away. It killed him a little every time, knowing that Steve and Bucky were going into this as stubborn assholes, refusing to acknowledge that he was not immortal, that there would come a time where they would look for him for company and he would no longer be there.

 

From what the other monsters said, they hadn’t had any luck in reaching out to them about it either.

 

And he probably still had time, Tony recognized. It wasn’t like he was going to die next week, next month, or even next year. He could even have a couple of decades left. But he was pretty sure that Steve and Bucky would double down their denial. He was unwillingly impressed with the thought that he could be more wrinkle than anything and incontinent and Steve and Bucky would still just hold his hands and tell him he was beautiful before cleaning him up. It was a sad type of impressed.

 

“You’ve got time,” Fury said again, more like a promise than an assurance this time.

 

Tony stared at him for a very long time, noting that Fury looked just like Loki did, like Thor—old, and wise, and endless. He wondered what Fury really looked like, whether it was a glamour or if he’d taken the time to change his—her?—body physically. “Are you—” he began to ask.

 

“Stark, didn’t your mother ever teach you to never ask a lady her age?” Fury deadpanned. “Now get the hell out. I’m done with you.”

 

.-.-.-.

 

Something in him settled with the monsters’ futures taken care of. He’d been worried about them ever since he’d gone to the doctor when he was thirty and had high blood pressure. (He owned a multi-billion dollar company. It would make anyone stressed. But it _did_ make him start to think.) But now there would be a safe place for his friends, for his—for his family, when he was gone. They could come and go as they wished, but his home would always be there for them, even if he couldn’t be.

 

“You look happy,” Sam commented. He hopped after Tony as he passed through the living room. “Lighter. Something good happened, didn’t it?”

 

“Yeah,” Tony admitted, grabbing the StarkPad he’d left on the couch. “Yeah, it did.”

 

“I’m happy something good happened to you,” Sam said. “It’s way better than all the times you’ve been kidnapped.”

 

“ _Sam_ ,” Clint snapped from the back of the couch. “What the hell.”

 

“Well it is,” Sam insisted.

 

Tony covered his mouth to try and smother his laugh. Sam was the youngest monster here, and sometimes it was hard for Tony to remember that when he was talking about ‘Ruth Hamilton and Claudette Colvin were first, I remember the hubbub, why they make a pregnant lady move? Why Rosa Parks get the limelight for that? Why not the pregnant lady?’ Then he said things like this, guileless and happy, and it was telling how young he was compared to the others, who had seen war and suffering.

 

“I’m glad that you’re happy for me, Sam,” Tony said kindly, and laughed when Sam puffed up proudly as Clint rolled his eyes in disgust behind him. “What, sometimes I need the words more than I need the cuddles, Clint.”

 

“Liar liar pants on fire,” Clint chanted, and then turned his back on him and sniffed in disdain.

 

Tony laughed again, and laughed harder when Sam hopped around the couch to look up at Clint disdainfully and say, “His pants are not on fire.”

 

.-.-.-.

 

Tony arrived home with several buckets of cooling theater popcorn and almost as many two-liters of soda. “Help me bring these in if you want them!” he called out, struggling with a bag filled with boxes of Twizzlers and Raisinets.

 

Bucky appeared in the door, shoving Steve off of him. “You’re not gonna be able to help.”

 

“But I can!” Steve whined, before letting out a startled ‘blergh?!’ as Hulk delicately grabbed him and set him aside so he could take several of the bags Bucky handed him.

 

“Steve, you’ve got three broken ribs. You can’t help,” Tony agreed gently.

 

“WELL MAYBE IF CLINT HADN’T THROWN ME SO FAR,” Steve began indignantly.

 

Tony set a single two-liter of root beer into his arms like a baby. “Here, Steve.”

 

“You’re patronizing me,” Steve sniffed, still clearly annoyed, but he did cradle the root beer and turn to gingerly carry it into the mansion.

 

“Fucking dumb ass, deliberately forgetting that he _told_ Clint to throw him as far as he could just to see how far it was,” Bucky muttered, but he was smiling a little.

 

“Did you get extra butter?” Natasha asked from the ceiling as Tony stepped inside. She followed him as he began toward the theater room. “Tony. I want extra butter.”

 

“The buckets with extra butter are marked,” Tony replied, exasperated.

 

“I can’t read.”

 

Tony considered this, then slowly answered, “When we get settled, I’ll give you a bucket.”

 

“Hmm,” Natasha agreed, and skittered on ahead of him. “If you don’t share that ginger ale with me, I’m going to eat your face.”

 

“Not if I eat yours first!” Clint snapped back immediately.

 

“I got two,” Tony sighed, and Loki drew out another two-liter of ginger ale and passed it up to Natasha.

 

Natasha took it and delicately flipped down onto the ground. The soda probably wouldn’t even fizz when she opened it. Clint smugly tucked his wing around Sam, talons wrapped around his own two-liter.

 

Tony fussed over making sure everyone had the proper bucket(s) of popcorn and sodas and candy until Bucky grabbed him by the belt and tugged him down onto the couch. “Ack!”

 

“We’re big monsters, Tony,” Steve teased, patting Tony’s knee, and offered him some of his root beer. “If we want more popcorn or candy, we can grab it ourselves.”

 

Tony grumbled petulantly but eventually reached out to grab a handful of Raisinets from the box Bucky was holding. “What did you guys decide on watching, anyhow?”

 

“We agreed on a double feature of _Snow White_ and _Robin Hood_ ,” Steve answered.

 

“Saps,” Tony said idly, but relaxed between the two monsters.

 

Bucky fell asleep halfway through _Snow White_ , muzzle slowly sliding down Tony’s chest until his settled in his lap. Tony ran his palm over the lupine monster’s head, one slow stroke after another.

 

“Who were you calling saps,” Natasha asked smugly after the movies were over and JARVIS brought the lights  up to show that Steve had also fallen asleep, sprawling along the couch and Tony’s lap, head pressed to Bucky’s.

 

“Still you for choosing kids’ movies,” Tony retorted. He smiled down at Steve and Bucky shyly. “But maybe I’m a little bit of a sap, too.”

 

“Maybe,” Sam scoffed. “You’re the sappiest of all.”

 

Tony tilted his head, conceding. “I mean. Wouldn’t I have to be, to let you all stay here?”

 

The monsters stared at him for a moment before muttering amongst themselves, sounding distinctly embarrassed, and slipping out of the room.

 

Well, except for Clint.

 

“Are you a fucking idiot, they want time alone,” Sam hissed, tugging at him ineffectually.

 

“I’m comfy,” Clint complained, not even bothering to pretend that he was struggling against Sam’s grip.

 

Tony settled back in his seat, carefully digging his fingers into Steve’s hair and running idle fingers over one of Bucky’s ears. “So am I.”

 

Clint immediately changed his mind, spreading his wings as he hopped out of the room. “Gross. Affection. I’m leaving.”

 

“We cuddle all the time!” Sam exclaimed, exasperated, as he followed him.

 

Tony waited until they were gone before leaning down and pressing a kiss to both Bucky and Steve’s heads.

 

.-.-.-.

 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked curiously as Tony set out pads of paper with wide lines on it, along with several big, cardboard books.

 

“I think,” Tony said, then paused uncertainly. He straightened a couple of the books. “I think it’s time I taught you and Bucky to read and write.”

 

Steve stared at him for a moment before letting out a snort. “Why would we ever need to learn to read and write?”

 

“I—” Tony started, then stopped himself, frowning down at the books. “…I just thought it might be nice.”

 

Steve would have continued to laugh, because why would he try to teach them _now_ of all times—but then he took in Tony’s hunched shoulders, the way he looked so dejected. He’d mentioned teaching them all to read before, but they’d all brushed him off in some way or another. Had they been hurting his feelings this entire time?

 

“Ow-ow-ow-ow-ooooowww _what?!_ ” Bucky exclaimed as Steve towed him into the library by his ear.

 

“We’re gonna learn how to read and write and you’re gonna _like_ it,” Steve insisted.

 

“Why?” Bucky whined.

 

“You like that show with the aliens, right?” Steve said, and when the lupine monster made a vague noise of agreement, he continued, “Tony says he _has_ tons of books with aliens that he thinks you might like.”

 

Bucky looked skeptical, but he did sit down at the table. “I guess we _have_ been putting this off.”

 

Steve picked up his pencil and held it like he was ready to stab someone. “Alright! Let’s go!”

 

“Steve, you draw, why are you—why are you holding your pencil like that, no,” Tony said, torn between laughing and crying, because Steve looked honestly surprised that holding a pencil to write was the same as holding it to draw.

 

Honestly, the things he put up with for these guys, he thought fondly.

 

.-.-.-.

 

Natasha and Clint continued to decline lessons. Tony supposed that was alright. Natasha looked absolutely enthralled as Bucky read her _Stranger in a Strange Land_ , no matter how halting or stilted it was. Sometimes Bucky would have to admit defeat and shuffle over to ask how to pronounce something, but Natasha was surprisingly patient about it, waiting for Bucky to come back and continue the story.

 

Steve took to reading to Clint for practice, even though Clint didn’t particularly care for stories—the circus had been full of them, and he’d heard all of them in at least one way or another. Steve liked classic literature rather than sci-fi, however, and Clint always happened to peel one eye open and cuddle closer to Sam whenever Steve cracked open Jane Austen.

 

Tony had offered to teach Sam to read. Sam had shrugged and curled his talons into the back of the couch as he thought about it before saying, “I know all the important words. I’m not interested right now, but thank you for offering. I’ll probably ask Bucky to teach me later so I can pick on him ruthlessly for being a bad teacher no matter how good he is at it.”

 

So Tony took the time when the monsters were practicing to sit down at his desk and write letters—letters to Natasha and Clint, about how thankful he was for their care and love, how he appreciated how they took care of him from his teenage years all the way to now, how he knew they’d take care of him as he aged further. He wrote about how he liked their hugs and brusque but warm affection. He wrote about how they were scary and that was what had made him love them in the beginning.

 

He wrote letters to Bruce and to Hulk about how he loved them differently but equally, and how he thought perhaps that it was the same way for them, and while he adored how Hulk protected him, he also loved talking science with Bruce. He wrote about how he hoped that someday, even if it was very far in the future, a future without him there, that Bruce would get the courage to go out into the world of humans again, and until then, he wished that Hulk would take care of him.

 

He wrote letters to Loki and Thor, telling them that they terrified him but he trusted them all the same. He wrote about how he knew they weren’t responsible for the others, but they’re very old, and have watched humans die, maybe even some they cared for, so perhaps they could give the other monsters some guidance. He wrote letters to Sam, too, thanking him preemptively for helping the other monsters. They weren’t as close, but Sam seemed to know that his experience in mourning his mate would have to be used to help the other monsters mourn him. These were the kind of things Steve, Bucky, Bruce, and Loki probably wouldn’t mind reading aloud to the other monsters that couldn’t read, anyway.

 

And then he wrote letters to Steve and to Bucky, sappy ones that they probably wouldn’t want to share, lurid ones that they definitely wouldn’t. He wrote about how loved he felt with them, and how sorry he was that it took so long for him to believe they loved him in any way other than family, and how he wished he had more time—always that he wished he had more time. It wasn’t even to make himself feel better; he was greedy, and he wanted more time to savor their love for him. He had been so lucky to find people who loved him like Steve and Bucky, and it didn’t even matter that they were monsters. He was loved. Steve and Bucky had always made him feel loved, even when he felt like he didn’t deserve it.

 

He gave the letters to Pepper for safekeeping, and Rhodey—boxes upon boxes of letters. Pepper and Rhodey always looked so sad when he handed them a new stack.

 

“I have plenty of time,” Tony insisted as he handed over another stack of letters to Rhodey. “I just want them to know all these things. I’m not—I’m not dying. I have plenty of time.”

 

Fury had said so, after all—he had time.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Monster AU Fanart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195871) by [NovaRain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NovaRain/pseuds/NovaRain)




End file.
